Rising Tide

The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America

By: John M. Barry

Narrated by: George Grizzard

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Lillian Smith Award.

An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. The river inundated the homes of almost one million people, helped elect Huey Long governor and made Herbert Hoover president, drove hundreds of thousands of African Americans north, and transformed American society and politics forever.

The flood brought with it a human storm: white and black collided, honor and money collided, regional and national powers collided. New Orleans’s elite used their power to divert the flood to those without political connections, power, or wealth, while causing Black sharecroppers to abandon their land to flee up north. The states were unprepared for this disaster and failed to support the Black community. The racial divides only widened when a white officer killed a Black man for refusing to return to work on levee repairs after a sleepless night of work.

In the powerful prose of Rising Tide, John M. Barry removes any remaining veil that there had been equality in the South. This flood not only left millions of people ruined, but further emphasized the racial inequality that have continued even to this day.©1997 John M. Barry; (P)1998 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division.

Disappointing so far

The topic is of great interest to me. But the author devotes too much space to developing a dramatic rivalry that isn’t that interesting and not enough to the science itself.

The reader is also working too hard on the drama.

The drama should come from what was known or not known about rivers, levees etc and what the consequences were in terms of success or failure.

Not one guy being a jerk.

Over-abridged

Would love an unabridged version, in this, too much was cut out, left it abrupt.

My error in not securing this work as a full through read

The story (as with most historical stories of hubris) is compelling. A strong mix of entanglements involving politics, race, ego and science drew me close to the era. However, the narration by Barry Grizzard made the book fully come to life. Excellent.

a little dry, but good

probably the best way I can describe this book.. the writing and presentation are a little dry, but when the closing music started I honestly felt like "dang it, I'm ready to hear MORE from the regional/social/political/etc viewpoints!!"
very informative book, growing up in 80s 90s Louisiana, I'd heard something about Hoover, about "the great flood", about Percy.. but this gave a great review of that era and filled in a knowledge gap.
AND.. I was supposed to read this book for college.. never got past 1st chapter.. NOW its finally done.. 20+ years later, lol!!

Mixture of politics, race and engineering

I very much enjoy books like this that present the engineering wrapped inside an excellent study of the people and the politics of complex times. The reader is extremely talented and makes the book very exciting. The story starts around 1840 and leads into the 1930's. I was very fascinated with the story of the Percy family of Greenville MS and of course with the politics of New Orleans. The section that discusses the conflicts between EADS and Humphreys is also very entertaining.