Kyle's review
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America by John M. Barry
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 New Orleans, and how political, social and financial power was concentrated in so few hands, however (usually) benevolent.
So on the first half of the subtitle, this book is really successful. The second half revolves around the notion that flood control legislation enacted after the flood represented a major shift in Americans’ attitude towards the role and potential of the federal government. Additionally, Barry reports that there was widespread clamor in the country for direct federal re...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 New Orleans, and how political, social and financial power was concentrated in so few hands, however (usually) benevolent.
So on the first half of the subtitle, this book is really successful. The second half revolves around the notion that flood control legislation enacted after the flood represented a major shift in Americans’ attitude towards the role and potential of the federal government. Additionally, Barry reports that there was widespread clamor in the country for direct federal re...more
