The Worst Hard Time : The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan is the heartbreaking story of those who settled the Great Plains only to find themselves in the middle of an eight year drought, not to mention the Depression. Egan highlights the endurance and fighting spirit of these settlers but also tells of those who were broken by disaster after disaster due to the unceasing dust storms.
Egan also points out that government push to turn the Great Plains into farmland caused erosion on a grand scale and it was only with the efforts of FDR's Soil Conservation Service returned the land and prevents another national crisis. At the end of the book he also points out some of the current practices that are depleting our natural resources and could potentially cause another ecological disaster in the future.
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