I really loved this book. Did a great job contextualizing the dust bowl. I just finished reading four wins by Kristen hannah and wanted to learn more about the dust bowl and the general period. I can definitely see where some of the stories and background details from her book stem particularly from this book. I thought that was fun to track.

I thought it was particularly How Egan demonstrates the irrationality of the great depression. The massive surge in the price of wheat in the late 20s made many people want to start farming wheat. And they’re making a lot of money. But then when the great depression struck, the value of the wheat because no one was buying it  because they didn’t have the money. 
 
it didn’t make as much economical sense for the farmers to farm wheat. But they already had the infrastructure to farm wheat. It was the only way they could support themselves in their family, and many of them were in a lot of debt. And so even though it made less economic sense, it was the only option so they actually ended up planting more wheat and telling more ground. Even though it was less economical, they couldn’t pull out because they felt like there was nowhere else for them to go. I thought it was also really interesting. How Egan says that truly very few people from the affected area went to California. He states 16,000?

I appreciated his contextualization of the broader colonial narrative of the Comanche and other native communities, buffalo, and wild grasses to name a few. He also talks about how to this day we are drawing more water than will replenish itself and that the dust bowl will happen within the next 100 years unless we figure out how to reverse it. 

Only critique i really have is that occasionally he will repeat the same fact or short story twice throughout the book.