The Dust Bowl: An Illustrated History
by Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns
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This "riveting" companion to the PBS documentary "clarifies our understanding of the 'worst manmade ecological disaster in American history'" (Booklist).In this riveting chronicle, Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns capture the profound drama of the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Terrifying photographs of mile-high dust storms, along with firsthand accounts by more than two dozen eyewitnesses, bring to life this heart-wrenching catastrophe, when a combination of drought, wind, and poor farming show more practices turned millions of acres of the Great Plains into a wasteland, killing crops and livestock, threatening the lives of small children, burying homesteaders' hopes under huge dunes of dirt—and setting in motion a mass migration the likes of which the nation had never seen.
Burns and Duncan collected more than three hundred mesmerizing photographs, some never before published, scoured private letters, government reports, and newspaper articles, and conducted in-depth interviews to produce a document that may likely be the last recorded testimony of the generation who lived through this defining decade.
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This is a fascinating, heartbreaking book about America's worst man made catastrophe, and how we seem on course to repeat it. I did not see the series on PBS but the memories of those who lived through it are completely engrossing. It really makes you realize the "hardships" that most people claim to experience today, PALE in comparison to what people had to endure during the great depression, the dust bowl, and WWII. I highly recommend this book.
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22+ Works 2,873 Members
Born and raised in a small town in Iowa, Dayton Duncan has been a reporter, humor columnist, editorial writer, chief of staff to a governor, and deputy press secretary for presidential campaigns. He lives in Walpole, New Hampshire
139+ Works 10,685 Members
Ken Burns, July 29, 1953 - Ken Burns was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 29, 1953. Burns attended the alternative campus of Hampshire College in Amherst Massachusetts, graduating with a degree in film making. After graduating from college, Burns began Florentine Films with a few of his friends, and began creating his first documentary, entitled show more "The Brooklyn Bridge." This film won an Academy Award in 1982. His most famous work is his "Civil War" series, which has won many various awards. Burns was the first film maker to be inducted into the Society of American Historians, an unprecedented honor. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Is an adaptation of
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2012
- Important events
- Great Depression
- Related movies
- The Dust Bowl (2012, tt2357472)
- First words
- (Preface) For a traveler traveling south down US 385/287 through the flat relentless expanses of first Prowers and then Baca County, Colorado, in the southeastern corner of that state, heading toward Oklahoma and the geograph... (show all)ic heart of the ten-year disaster known as the Dust Bowl, it is impossible not to notice the relative stability and even peace of the landscape.
From the time she was a young girl, Carolina Boa Henderson had dreamed of having a piece of land she could call her own. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)In accordance with her wishes, the homestead was placed in trust - on the condition that it never be plowed again.
Classifications
- Genres
- History, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, Art & Design
- DDC/MDS
- 978.032 — History & geography History of North America Western United States 1900- 1918-1945
- LCC
- F595 .D93 — Local History of the United States, Canada and Latin America United States local history The West. Trans-Mississippi Region. Great Plains
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 187
- Popularity
- 174,961
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.06)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 2
