Donald Worster's Dust Bowl

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In his book, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, Donald Worster discusses the not-so-coincidental, simultaneous occurrence of both the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression and the hardships Americans faced due to these two disastrous events. Worster advocates the existence of a close link between these incidents, stating that “the same society produced them both” and that “both events revealed fundamental weaknesses in the traditional culture of America,” One being ecological, and the other being economical (5). Worster includes other influential factors that played into the emergence of the Dust Bowl, but determines that capitalism was that main proponent. Worster asserts, “capitalist-based society has a greater resource hunger than …show more content…

His book provides an abundance of quality information from economic reports and statistics as well as migration data, to Dust Bowl songs, photography, and poetry of the time. By doing this, Worster is able to evoke the true atmosphere of the times, appealing to a reader’s social and economic curiosities they may have when choosing to read this book. Worster is able to demonstrate parallels between the economic forces and attitudes that led to the Dust Bowl and those that persist today - capitalism being his main cause and concern. While Worster never really supplies a solid solution to this problem, he does suggest that there this something that needs or needed to be done and that government should have intervened in some way with more controls. For example, he mentions, “These capitalist-minded individuals were still permitted the freedom to live where they chose, to own as much land as they liked, to plant whatever they wanted, and to pursue gain without much hindrance,” (152-154). Worster’s passion toward his area of study is apparent in the pages of this book. He is able to offer us a unique perspective as an actual inhabitant of the area affected by the Dust Bowl while still remaining unbiased and bringing about broader perspectives as well. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to expand their knowledge of the Dust Bowl Era. The way Worster is able to integrate personal accounts, different varieties of art, music, writing, etc. of the times, and concrete data and statistics is wonderful and interesting. He also provokes his readers to realize the connections between the past and the present, and wonder whether Americans have grown from the mistakes in the past. Because of this, this book can easily be read for both intellectual stimulation and

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