Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America
by John M. Barry
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Read in October, 2007
This could easily have been a 4- or 5-star book. I learned a lot more than I expected to about the Mississippi, the Delta, race relations, and the political pressures on flood control strategies in the 1800's. The book caught my attention and I read it every chance I got. What makes this a mediocre book, though, is the author's blatantly opinionated statements or sentences that are supposed to make the reader more interested but have the opposite effect. It is not a neutral history. The author c...more
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Read in October, 2007
The subtitle provides a great framework for this review: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America
This is a great history of engineering efforts on the Mississippi, culminating in the flood, and continuing into the relief effort (coordinated by then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover).
It is also a short history of the Mississippi-Yazoo delta area, which I really didn't know anything about.
Most interestingly, it tales a look at the extreme upper class social elite in ...more
This is a great history of engineering efforts on the Mississippi, culminating in the flood, and continuing into the relief effort (coordinated by then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover).
It is also a short history of the Mississippi-Yazoo delta area, which I really didn't know anything about.
Most interestingly, it tales a look at the extreme upper class social elite in ...more
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Read in January, 2005
John Berry hails from New Orleans and I kept seeing his byline after Katrina. PBS presented a documentary about the 1927 flood based largely on this book. The horrors and anger about Katrina were still fresh in my mind and I hunted this book up to read. Wonderful.
In Rising Tide, John Barry chronicles the events that precipitated and resulted from the Mississippi flood of 1927, starting with the engineers and committees who battled greedily — and ultimately foolishly — to master North ...more
In Rising Tide, John Barry chronicles the events that precipitated and resulted from the Mississippi flood of 1927, starting with the engineers and committees who battled greedily — and ultimately foolishly — to master North ...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommended to John by:
Bill
It has been quite some time since I've read such a straight up history of "important men." That said, this is one good history of the important men and their machinations that resulted in significant changes in U.S. history.
Barry discusses the Mississippi River from multiple points of view. He begins with the actual river, its hydrology, and its impact on the natural environment. An interesting sections details the political means through which both people and industry attempted to...more
Barry discusses the Mississippi River from multiple points of view. He begins with the actual river, its hydrology, and its impact on the natural environment. An interesting sections details the political means through which both people and industry attempted to...more
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Read in August, 2008
Wow.
Great story about what happenned that year on the mississippi. There is a great map near the middle of the book that showed how large the area of flooded land was. Thing friggin flooded out ~ 75 miles on both sides of the river all the way up to the Ohio and down most of the way to New Orleans. Many of the other tributaries flooded as well.
But the set up is probably the best part. Eads, Humphrey, Ellet were all civil engineers during the Reconstruction and planned out opposing ...more
Great story about what happenned that year on the mississippi. There is a great map near the middle of the book that showed how large the area of flooded land was. Thing friggin flooded out ~ 75 miles on both sides of the river all the way up to the Ohio and down most of the way to New Orleans. Many of the other tributaries flooded as well.
But the set up is probably the best part. Eads, Humphrey, Ellet were all civil engineers during the Reconstruction and planned out opposing ...more
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Read in January, 2006
recommends it for:
Non-fiction lovers
It took me nearly a year to get through this very detailed and well-researched non-fiction book. Reading this taught me about the history behind the unique culture of New Orleans, for all of its good and bad points. At times the book was a bit slow but well worth getting to the end. This book gives a new perspective on the massive loss of wetlands along the Gulf Coast and the flood of Katrina, because after reading this book, you must ask - Haven't we learned anything? In many ways, our cities w...more
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OK, I didn't really read this I listened to it as a book on tape. I thought it was annoying in that it used this sort of "great men" approach to creating a narrative out of a complicated social, economic, technical, and cultural history. Still, I thought it was really very interesting. It made me want to learn more about many things: the development of share cropping, various ways that the civil war effected technology, what set the stage for a new deal style response to the great ...more
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Read in January, 2007
Okay, not an obvious book to read, but intersting in light of the New Orleans floods - it turns out that it's far from the first time New Orleans has been threatened.
Rising Tide covers more than just the engineering of flood defences and what happened with the water, but rather looks into who lives on the flood plain, and why, and their politics. It does cover the engineering side of things too, and points out that the flood defence schemes used weren't what was recommended by either of the ...more
Rising Tide covers more than just the engineering of flood defences and what happened with the water, but rather looks into who lives on the flood plain, and why, and their politics. It does cover the engineering side of things too, and points out that the flood defence schemes used weren't what was recommended by either of the ...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommended to Merilee by:
Momrecommends it for: anyone who has ever lived in the Mississippi Delta or New Olreans
I wish I would have read this book while I was living in the MS Delta, as I could have visited the very place where the Mississippi first overflowed in the flood of 1927. This book was very intriguing to me, as it describes so aptly the social climate of both New Orleans and the Delta. So many names and places and events were familiar to me, that I felt like I was reading a family history (maybe a stretch). Though this book lags in places (engineering and politics are not my forte), I thoroughl...more
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
Everyone
This was recommended to me as an essential read for anyone trying to figure out how New Orleans works. I've still got a long way to go to figure it out, but Rising Tide certainly helped open up some of the city's old baggage.
It's ostensibly the story of the great 1927 flood, but this tale is much more than that. It's about river science and political power and the Mississippi Delta and the old New Orleans social clubs and various other fiefdoms that were thrown into turmoil with the the imp...more
It's ostensibly the story of the great 1927 flood, but this tale is much more than that. It's about river science and political power and the Mississippi Delta and the old New Orleans social clubs and various other fiefdoms that were thrown into turmoil with the the imp...more
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In 1927 the Mississippi flooded--to say it flooded is not enough--it overran its banks, it broke the levees, it threatened the very heart of New Orleans. Nearly 80 years before Katrina, here is a story of racism and politics in New Orleans that is all too familiar. This book is essential reading for anyone who is outraged enough about the fate of poor black people in New Orleans. Unless they are dying, homeless and outraged, they seem to be invisible. This is the only way to explain how &quo...more
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Read in April, 2006
This is an incredibly detailed history of how the Mississippi River affected life in the United States in the early 20th century. The book provides insight into the life of many political figures including Herbert Hoover and his rise in popularity - it is this story of the great flood of 1927 that ultimately brought him the presidency. This book will teach anyone a lot about US history, especially that of the south before Civil Rights as we get another glimpse of the contrasting lifestyles of ...more
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I remember local stories of a deer running through the lobby of the Hotel Gacio in the Arkansas delta during the great Mississippi flood. Rising Tide retells the calamity which soured the damaged property and exposed the heroic along with the merely selfish actions of the victims. Stories of Walker Percy's forbears figure centrally in the accounting and make the book valuable for its disclosure of Percy's roots in Greenville, Mississippi, called at the time,(but unfortunately no longer), the &qu...more
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How can a book about the great Mississippi flood of 1927 been interesting to any normal person? Well, I suspect that most of us who are goodreads people are not "normal" anyway but that isn't the correct answer.I think it is because a great writer can make any subject interesting and it just so happens that this flood was a very pivotal event that helped shape American history. I read it before Katrina and imagine it would be even more interesting now, in her wake.
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Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone interested in history of the Mississippi River - consequences of the 1927 flood.
Two years ago when Katrina struck New Orleans, everyone had an opinion about 'what went wrong'. This book, well researched and wonderfully written, gives an excellent chronicle of the 1927 flood that devasted the upper and lower Mississippi. Decisions and legislation that resulted from this disaster affected New Orleans and land along the Mississippi forever. History is the best teacher to allow us to speak with knowledge about the present.
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Read in August, 2007
I read this book because I wanted to learn a little bit more about the area I am now living. It was a really interesting account of the Mississippi flood of 1927 and how it affected the lives of so many people. There is a lot of great history about New Orleans in this book that is relevant to want the city is going thru today. I did get a little board with it about 3/4 of the way thru and had to quit. I felt like I learned enough!
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Read in January, 2006
recommends it for:
Mississippians or Louisianans
This book is absolutely incredible. It's historical non-fiction and it's an enormous story. However, it's the author that really makes this story because he really makes the Mississippi river come to life. When I see the river now-a-days I look at it completely differently than when I did when before I read the book. If you live in the deep south near the Mighty Mississippi then you need to read this book.
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
Anyone that was pissed about the government response to Hurricane Katrina
As a New Orleans resident and Hurricane Katrina survivor, I was eager to learn more about the history of the levees in this city. I just started reading it but this book appears to put together a good historical perspective of race and poverty along the Mississippi River and also details the intentional destruction of the levees back in the 20's. More updates as I get further along....
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Read in December, 2005
recommends it for:
fans of Americana and engineering
I first sighted this book at the office a few weeks before Katrina. Little did we know how relevant it would be in the months to come ... Barry puts together a fantastic narrative of life on the Mississippi Delta (Who knew that could be interesting?) and describes the way man forged the river's path and decided the fate of thousands well before New Orleans became a tragedy.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in January, 2007
The history surrounding the flood of 1927 is very well written and intriguing. As an engineer & planner, I first read the details about how they handled the Great Mississippi technically. The rest of the book also later grabbed my attention, and I finished it with a better understanding of politics and evolving science. I learned much abou socio-economic studies.
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