The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 & How It Changed America

[Carolab]

http://www.powells.com/biblio?PID=29017&cgi=product&isbn=0684840022

Publisher Comments:
In 1927, the Mississippi River swept across an area roughly equal in size to Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont combined, leaving water as deep as thirty feet on the land stretching from Illinois and Missouri south to the Gulf of Mexico. Close to a million people — in a nation of 120 million — were forced out of their homes. Some estimates place the death toll in the thousands. The Red Cross fed nearly 700,000 refugees for months.

Rising Tide is the story of this forgotten event, the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known. But it is not simply a tale of disaster. The flood transformed part of the nation and had a major cultural and political impact on the rest. Rising Tide is an American epic about science, race, honor, politics, and society.

Rising Tide begins in the 19th century, when the first serious attempts to control the river began. From the engineers and the dominant families in the Delta to the New Orleans elite, Rising Tide tells how the flood changed the face of America and laid the groundwork for the New Deal.

Review:
"A gripping account of the mammoth flooding of 1927 that devastated Mississippi and Louisiana and sent political shock waves to Washington...Rising Tide is a brilliant match of scholarship and investigative journalism." Jason Berry, Chicago Tribune

Synopsis:
In an epic that "is nothing less than the story of America itself" (Wil Hygood, the Boston Globe), Barry begins in the 19th century with man's battle to control the Mississippi River and the development of a unique society in the Delta and New Orleans. The tale ends with murder, dynamited levees, and national political changes that resonate today. The 1927 flood washed away a culture, elected Huey Long governor and Herbert Hoover president, and drove hundreds of thousands of blacks north.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684840022/102-1577517-2454541?v=glance

[prplhze2000]

1. Wall Street Journal has a similar story in Wed.'s issue

Pretty good read.

[newyawker99]

4. Hi prplhze2000!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[newyawker99]

5. Hi prplhze2000!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[NYC]

2. Rising Tide.

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America
by John M. Barry

The full title of the book.

[Silverhair]

6. That the same guy that wrote about the great flu epidemic.

Good researcher and writer. I'll order the book from Amazon.

[Daphne08]

3. My grandmother was stranded in her house

with the flood water up to her windows in '27 (my daddy and uncle were just babies and my grandfather was working in Texas). They were finally rescued by her brothers (my great-uncles). She used to tell me stories about it when I was little.

They lost everything, and I've thought about her so much over the past week.