Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s

Donald Worster

What caused the Dust Bowl of the nineteen thirties, and what does it teach about how a farming culture treats the land?

At a glance

You will understand that the dust storms were man made, the result of stripping away the grass that held the soil
You will question a creed of maximum production, which the author says shaped American farming from the first tobacco planters
You will weigh the author's warning that other regions may repeat dust bowls as population pushes onto marginal land