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Summary: Always Learning Something New
Review: As a History major in college, I always assumed that I knew a little bit about most of American history. It's very humbling, then, when I come across a book that covers a subject about which I was completely ignorant; in this case, the Mississippi flood of 1927. The author quite lucidly explores the background of what happened, with historical trips back into the 19th century, and then goes through what occurred during the flood itself, and its aftermath. This work covers a seminal event in the life of the area of our country touched by that flood that is mostly unknown to the rest of us. For bringing to light that knowledge alone, he is to be commended, but the book stands on its own terms as something worth reading.
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Summary: Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
Review: Very interesting book, if you live in the Mississippi Delta and you remember your parents or grandparents speaking of the flood of 27, you will have a much greater awareness and appreciation of what they survived. If it were to happen again, and the conditions the same, as I sit and type this review, my feet would be submerged.
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Summary: A Book That Deserved the Pulitzer and all other major awards
Review: I can't tell you how much I loved this book. Without question it is one of the ten most fascinating books I've ever read. I read it when it first came out as part of the research for my own recently published second book. I was amazed that it didn't receive the kind of hoopla that so many undeserving books receive. Barry did an exemplary job of exposing the psyche of the Southern way of thinking and the Caucasian migration into the Mississippi Delta, and the gravity of what Afro-Americans were dealing with in the region. Publishers are you listening? Put this guy at the top of your list for authors who deserve richly rewarding book contracts!
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Summary: A great read
Review: History well-researched and crafted into a compelling narrative-- this is a great read, an affecting story, and a nice piece of education as well. This is how history was meant to be written.
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Summary: extraordinary book
Review: 5 stars is the most allowed, but this book rates more. Rising Tide is wonderfully written, evidences outstanding scholarship, and addresses important questions that illuminate the development of our moedern society-- especially southern society-- and how man's relationship with nature affects economic and social development. Buit I fear my description of the book makes it sound boring. Believe me, it isn't. There is a compelling narrative here with characters as brilliantly laid out as in any novel. The combination of disaster story, important issues, provocative analysis, and scholarship really do make this an extraordinary book.
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Summary: Fascinating panoramic story
Review: For those of us who only know the United States from history, movies and occasional visits, this book succeeds wonderfully well in capturing the epic scale on which so many events seem to happen in America. I did see the Mississippi river once, back in 1983, and this book brought back vivid memories of what an extraordinary force of nature it is. The book also evoked happy memories of a few days spent in New Orleans. As a work of history, the book could perhaps have been edited a little more tightly, and I agree with one or two other reviewers who have suggested that it fails to convey all the subtleties of New Orleans and Delta life in the 1920s. But it is a great story, and I think Barry is justified in devoting a lot of space early on to the question of how 19th-century engineers grappled with bringing the river under control.
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Summary: an excellent read about the most southern place in the world
Review: Barry's book was interesting, factual, and informative. It was also a pleasure to read. Inferences that this epic event lead to dramatic changes in American politics are plausible. This book is a must read for Southerners, Mississippians, and especially we fortunate few native Deltans.
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Summary: without a doubt one of the very best books I have ever read
Review: I probably wouldn't have reviewed this book were it not for the idiot review and rating from the reader in Bethesda, Md, which got me upset. This is a truly great book. I'm hardly the only person who thinks so. Read the other customer comments, or check out the awards the book's won-- many, including the Francis Parkman Prize, given by the Society of American Historians-- an elite group-- as the outstanding history book of the year. To win the Parkman, Rising Tide properly beat out winners of both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer. It's better than those books-- more thorough, better written, and far more original.. So obviously professional historians as well as book critics do not share the views of the person from Bethesda.But enough about awards, which mean nothing anyway. The book itself is an extraordinary (and amazingly well-documented) story that uses a great flood (made almost 1 million homeless, nearly 1% of the total population of the country at the time) as a narrative vehicle to explore the workings of a society, and to show how it changed that society-- everything from presidential politics and the shift of black voters from the Republican to the Democratic Party, to how engineers deal with the river. There are many stories contained in this book, and the author succeeds in weaving them all together. And they are important stories. One, for example, that struck me: it includes a case study of how ego corrupts science, and how as a result millions of people can be held hostage. (This apparently was the one part of the book that even the Bethesda reader liked.) In fact, the Boston Globe review of this book, which alerted me to it (it was another rave review), put it simply and accurately: "This is nothing less than the story of America itself."
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Summary: The best book I read in 1998.
Review: This book offers much information on a lot of topics (history, engineering, ethics) but I have found myself drawing present day correlations to how we get information. Mr.Barry discribes in detail how the newspapers in New Orleans were controlled by business. Just think about how we get information on the internet and make decisions based on that information (investments, weather,purchases, facts). After reading Rising Tide, I am reminded to be careful about where my information is coming from. Donna Evans
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Summary: Not just educational, but a really good read.
Review: If we think that the political sphere of today is convoluted and sinister, try reading about what produced the levees only policy on the Mississippi River. Then discover how the backroom politics affected the handling of the flood. The research is impeccable, and as a result, I finally understood a lot about the state of Mississippi, not to mention New Orleans. I have given this book to many people, all of whom wondered why at first and then thanked me for one of the most interesting books they've read in a long time. Even if you prefer fiction, don't miss this one. This could have been a dynamite novel, but thank goodness it was presented in such a scholarly fashion.
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