Title Dust Bowl : the southern plains in the 1930s / Donald Worster

Edition Twenty-fifth Anniversary edition Published New York : Oxford University Press, 2004

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Description 1 online resource (275 pages) : illustrations, maps Series ACLS Humanities E-Book (Series) Contents A darkling plain. The black blizzards roll in ; If it rains ; Okies and exodusters -- Prelude to dust. What holds the earth together ; Sodbusting -- Cimarron County, Oklahoma. Frontier in ruins ; When the cattle ate tumbleweeds ; Hard times in the Panhandle -- Haskell County, Kansas. Unsettled ground ; The wheat farmer and the welfare state ; A sense of place -- A New Deal for the land. Facing up to limits ; Learning from nature ; Make two blades of grass grow -- Epilogue : on a thin edge Summary "In the mid 1930s, North America's Great Plains faced one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in world history. Donald Worster's classic chronicle of the devastating years between 1929 and 1939 tells the story of the Dust Bowl in ecological as well as human terms. Now, twenty-five years after his book helped to define the new field of environmental history, Worster shares his more recent thoughts on the subject of the land and how humans interact with it. In a new afterword, he links the Dust Bowl to current political, economic and ecological issues--including the American livestock industry's exploitation of the Great Plains, and the on-going problem of desertification, which has now become a global phenomenon. He reflects on the state of the plains today and the threat of a new dustbowl. He outlines some solutions that have been proposed, such as "the Buffalo Commons," where deer, antelope, bison and elk would once more roam freely, and suggests that we may yet witness a Great Plains where native flora and fauna flourish while applied ecologists show farmers how to raise food on land modeled after the natural prairies that once existed."--Provided by publisher Personal recollections recreate experiences of two Dust Bowl communities Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (EBL platform, viewed August 8, 2016) Subject Dust Bowl Era, 1931-1939. Agriculture -- Southwestern States -- History -- 20th century Agriculture -- Great Plains -- History -- 20th century Dust storms -- Southwestern States -- History -- 20th century Dust storms -- Great Plains -- History -- 20th century Depressions -- 1929 -- United States. Dust Bowl Era, 1931-1939 Agriculture Depressions Dust storms Desertifikation SUBJECT Southwestern States -- History -- 20th century Great Plains -- History -- 20th century Subject Great Plains United States United States -- Southwestern States Great Plains -- Süd Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780199758692 0199758697

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