-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America
by Geoff Williams
A riveting historic narrative that tells the iconic story of the great heat wave that ravaged the continent in the last gasps of the Dust Bowl.
In 1936, ironically after one of the coldest winters on record, North America experienced a heat wave that remains unmatched today. Thanks to a combination of an unusually warm sea surface in the Atlantic and Pacific, stagnating low-pressure, drought and poor farming techniques, temperatures soared across virtually every state (and the territory of Alaska) for months and killed more than 11,000 Americans and approximately 1,000 Canadians. Air conditioning was uncommon, workers' rights were few, and in an age before high blood pressure medication, a lot of middle-aged people, toiling in the sun, were literally working themselves to death.
This was a summer in which there was almost no escape from the heat, and woe to those who tried to flee it. Men, women and children rushed into rivers to cool off, only to drown. Others slept on roofs to cool off, only to roll over and plummet to their deaths. Young and old, rich and poor, but especially poor – it didn't really matter. If the heat wanted you, it was going to get you.
The heat wave of 1936 would spark massive social and technological advances, as well as improvements in health care, and it would also start an ongoing national dialogue about climate change.
Filled with history and characters as intense as the oppressive heat itself, The Summer of Death will be the first nonfiction book solely about this paradigm changing summer. In the tradition of Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Times and Edward P. Kohn's Hot Time in the Old Town, The Summer of Death reveals a unique and vital chapter of American history, one that we ignore at our peril.
"Exceptionally hot weather, back when most Americans couldn't escape it. Williams summarizes what little scientists knew of Earth's temperature cycles and the state of cooling technology, but mostly he delivers chronological chapters of what reporters documented: victim after victim suffering and often dying during hot weather. Readers will encounter a steady stream of vivid, usually heartrending anecdotes. A breathless account of a Depression-era heat wave, long-forgotten." ―Kirkus Reviews
"Williams vividly writes about the Great Heat Wave. A highly recommended cautionary tale." —Library Journal
"Williams examines the daily experiences of people during the heat wave as they attempted to stay cool in a time when air conditioning was not in widespread use. Williams includes related deaths to emphasize the all-encompassing nature of the heat [and] spotlights strange occurrences, debates over appropriate clothing, and inventive ways folks came up with to beat the heat. A fascinating addition to literature on historic weather phenomena." —Booklist
"The great heat wave of 1936 might not loom large in our collective view of history, but it had profound impacts on life in the United States and Canada, creating changes that still echo today. The Summer of Death is a brilliant look at that event, filled with meticulously researched facts but reading like the most exciting page-turning fiction. This is history at its finest!" ―Kenn Kaufman, author of The Birds That Audubon Missed
This information about The Summer of Death was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Geoff Williams is the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America and Washed Away: How the Great Flood of 1913, America's Most Widespread Natural Disaster, Terrorized a Nation and Changed It Forever, also available from Pegasus Books. He lives near Dayton, Ohio.
If you liked The Summer of Death, try these:
It is among the commonplaces of education that we often first cut off the living root and then try to replace its ...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
