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September 3, 2008
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
This week I've been listening to John M. Barry's Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. Sadly, it was only available in an abridged version on Audible. For instance, the book-on-iPod version manages to tell the story of the Flood of '27 and the Percys without ever mentioning Walker Percy. Somehow I figure the unabridged print version doesn't do that. Still, it was an interesting book - and fit my definition of recorded book perfectly - something I probably wouldn't get around to reading on the page. In this case, it's quite rare that I bother to read American history.
It also seemed fortuitous that I'd bought this before Gustav came along, since so much of this book is about the fall of New Orleans from major city to backwater in the aftermath of the Flood - and the horrible behavior of the New Orleans elite, who rather cheerfully decided to flood two downstream parishes.
I didn't know much about the Herbert Hoover side of dealing with this particular disaster before. Barry is very interesting on the machinations between local, state, Red Cross, and federal relief efforts. Is there something comparable on the Galveston Hurricane? Listening to this would perhaps give a little perspective to some people who wailed and gnashed their teeth about Katrina, except those who think that the Federal Government should be able to achieve all things.
LeRoy Percy comes off as a much greater man than his rather unsatisfactory son, William Alexander Percy, in this telling. I read Lanterns on the Levee a long time ago - I need to read that again.
All in all, I think I'll be recommending to book to a lot of people.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at September 3, 2008 4:35 PM