Braving the Elements: The Stormy History of American Weather by David Laskin

by David Laskin

Journalist David Laskin writes, "The history of weather is both a history of nature and a history of human desire. A history that is made and erased every day." And the history of American weather is particularly "Our weather and climate have been strange since the beginning of our history. Our perceptions have always been skewed by expectation, our memories distorted by self-interest." From a European perspective, North American weather is never it is too hot, too cold, too violent, and, for most of the continent, much too dry. But Americans' minds never quite catch up with the weather where they actually "When we move, weather is the last thing we leave behind and the first thing we find when we arrive. Weather, in a sense, is home." Laskin's great insight is that the weather is never what we expect, because we always misremember the past. And in America in particular, this unexpected weather is always a sign of God's vengeance, human tampering, the progress or the regress of civilization. Laskin covers American weather from the warm spell that lured the Norse to Greenland, through the little ice age and the dust bowl, up to the greenhouse anxieties of the turn of the millennium. "We are constantly making and revising the history of weather, but weather itself is ahistorical. Infinite, fathomless, incalculable, it just keeps happening, regardless, every day." --Mary Ellen Curtin

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Great Neck, New York, I grew up hearing stories that my immigrant Jewish grandparents told about the “old country” (Russia) that they left at the turn of the last century. When I was a teenager, my mother’s parents began making yearly trips to visit our relatives in Israel, and stories about the Israeli family sifted down to me as well. What I never heard growing up was that a third branch of the family had remained behind in the old country – and that all of them perished in the Holocaust. These are three branches whose intertwined stories I tell in THE FAMILY: THREE JOURNEYS INTO THE HEART OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

An avid reader for as long as I remember, I graduated from Harvard College in 1975 with a degree in history and literature and went on to New College, Oxford, where I received an MA in English in 1977. After a brief stint in book publishing, I launched my career as a freelance writer. In recent years, I have been writing suspense-driven narrative non-fiction about the lives of people caught up in events beyond their control, be it catastrophic weather, war, or genocide. My 2004 book The Children’s Blizzard, a national bestseller, won the Washington State Book Award and the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and was nominated for a Quill Award. The Long Way Home (2010) also won the Washington State Book Award.

I write frequently for the New York Times Travel Section, and I have also published in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Seattle Times and Seattle Metropolitan.

When I’m not writing or traveling for research, I am usually outdoors trying to tame our large unruly garden north of Seattle, romping with our unruly Labrador retriever pup Patrick, skiing in Washington State’s Cascade Mountains, or hiking in the Wallowa Mountains of northeast Oregon. My wife, Kate O’Neill, and I have raised three wonderful daughters – all grown now and embarked on fascinating lives of their own.

Reviews

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been reading a LOT about disasters lately - I read about the Hinckley Forest Fire and the Black Blizzards of the Dust Bowl, both a combination of bad business practices and natures terrible fury; the Children's Blizzard, an unforeseen storm (akin to 2013 polar vortex) that left hundreds of frozen bodies scattered on the prairie; the Molasses Flood (not natural but couldnt help myself); America's deadliest avalanche that sent a train full of passenger careening down a ravine; the Perfect Storm, a tragic tale immortalized by book and film; and I'm about to start a book on the Hurricane that killed 6,000 people... and this book, I felt initially, tied in well with the themed read. How did people predict and deal with the weather in days past? The yearly death toll of American's in storms shows us that even today we are powerless, but at least we almost always KNOW when weather is coming, there are storm shelters and basements, the National Guard with boats and helicopters, modern hospitals, we have RESOURCES and the most unappreciated but perhaps the most important resource availbale are our weathermen.

In the beginning I thought this book would be more about the Indians reading the signs, such as the early nod in the book to Chief Bowlegs of the Seminole Indians. Chief Bowlegs, in 1926, led his people further inland away from an impending (and unpredicted) hurricane because he read the signs, an unseasonable blooming of saw grass; the migration of rats anad rabbits north and west of the coast; an unusual silence among the birds and abrupt flights northwest; an eerie barking of alligators and movement into deepwater. I am wildly thankful that I live under a roof, with a floor, and four walls, I'm heated and air conditioned and sealed against the outside, but I am also a weather nut- I love noticing the difference in pressures, knowing what a cloud means for my local weather, having a feel for it if you will, and I feel that there is something tragically lost almost that people dont look at the butterflies landing on the leeward side of the tree, or notice the tenuous and worried call of cattle, anymore. I wanted to know more about the smudgy back clouds that farmers in Nebraska looked for in December in the Northwest, the clouds that heralded an imminent blizzard. I wanted to know how did they stay warm? What precautions did they take in the cities where there wasn't limitless firewood? What did people think when they saw a tornado?

That's what I thought I'd learn about. Instead it was much more about how psychologically people dealt with the weather, which is to say from the earliest Native Americans, from pagans to Christians, to now, we pray. We pray a lot. We pray for rain, we pray for sun, we pray that the hurricane loses strength, and that the tornado lifts back up off the ground before it gets to us. Because even if we can forecast weather, we cannot stop it. To think that we can stop it is a lie. INsurance calls them Acts of God for a reason, and whether you believe in God or not, Nature is undeniably a force we cannot handle. THats why, for so many of us, its absolutely mesmerizing.

The book turned out to be far more about the evolution of weather science, which was fascinating. It talked about the rain dances and water cults of Native Americans, it talked about the Puritan weeks of fasting for the rains that brought the first THanksgiving harvest, and it talked about the slow evoltuion of scientific theories- from Franklin to the Norwegians that theorized fronts. I knew that the modern day NOAA and NWS had a tumultous beginning in the signal corp, but I never realized that the calculations for standard meteorology had been discovered, but the people recognized that they simply didnt have the technology to make the computations fast enough. They knew how to predict the weather, at least far better than they were, they just couldn't yet. I'm born into an age when launching a satellite isnt big news, I can literally check the weather forecast in 2 seconds by turning on my phone, I dont even have to wait for the evening news, and Doppler is a household name. I had no idea that Doppler was an invention as recently as it was. I cant imagine life on the prairie without being able to see the ominous hook echo in Doppler. Ye gods.

It was a great read, in the end, and second Laskin read. It lost a star for the clutter that was the end of the book, because it took a turn at examining the evolution of on-tv meteorologists, which, while still on-topic seemed more hastil put together than the scholarly preceeding chapters. It lost another half star because its terribly out of date. It was published in 1996- it very much could have benefited by an addenddum that talked about theh F5 in Joplin or the drowning of New Orleans and how the weather service has desperately tried to make citizens and bureaucrats listen with both success and failure, and the publics responses to it, and the whole section on global warming needs updated as well (although he gets extra points for the at-the-time discussions for and against the theory). Annnnnnd ok, maybe he lost a half star because I really did want more first hand accounts about people's reactions to the weather, and less about how society has evolved to adapt our culture to the weather. It was still interesting, but not quite what I wanted. I dont know if thats fair, but its my rating, so it can be what I want. :)

I apologize for any typos- I'm typing on an ipad and trying to go back and edit is killing me. The cursor is so erratic. I'll correct on Monday when I get to a computer.

To read my review of my Natural Disaster Themed read which included 10 different disaster books click link: Here!

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are interested in weather, American history and science, this is the book for you! Laskin does a great job telling the story of different weather events in North American history against the back drop of the technological inventions and improvements that have created the excellent weather forecasting we have today. I know sometimes today's weather forecasting seem to leave a lot to be desired, but compared to what our ancestors had, it is absolutely amazing. Laskin's book is easily read, fast moving and short enough that you will actually be a bit disappointed when you reach the end! A GREAT read!

[Shelley Alongi]

I have to admit from the outset that I was a little disappointed with the arrangement of themes only because I had just read The Children’s blizzard and was mesmerized by the elements that brought the storm together. I think I was expecting more space in this book to be devoted to the formation of storms. This may be because I moved to Texas six years ago and in our area anyway when there is a storm or a weather event everyone’s attention including mine shifts to television coverage of the event. I originally moved here from Southern California where the weather is relatively mild so it took some getting used to dealing with the weather here.

I realized that this book was a general discussion of ways of dealing with the weather and the evolution of forecasting and data gathering techniques which did make the book more interesting. It was kind of like stepping back in time to read about the discovery and implementation of Dpler into forecasts because I do remember when Dappler was a relatively new thing. He also mentions the fact that in the future we could gain the weather forecast from our cell phones. How many times a day do we check the temperature and look at radar? We dismissed choir once because we saw a storm coming, sitting a mile from our town. We made it home in time and we didn’t live very far from the church where the rehearsal was taking place.

I think I remember the 1993 storm he discusses in the book. I definitely remember the incredible flooding he covered in the book. I kept thinking about the 2021 winter in Texas where we had freezing weather for 256 hours and many lost power here. I didn’t lose power or water but the water did freeze and the cats certainly spent more time in the house. I like winters. I suppose the fact that I’’m talking about my own weather memories shows just how important we think it is. I can’t say that I’ve actually blamed the weather man for my ruined weekend. The evolution of television weather broadcasts didn’t hold as much interest for me. I most enjoyed the chapters explaining the cultural handling of weather from the Puritans to the Indians and the discussion in Almanacs. Someone read an almanac prediction for 2022 weather recently and I remember thinking: “That sounds pretty common where to expect weather events.” I drew my conclusion of that from the reading I’ve done in this book and the Children’s Blizzard. The information in this book also helps me deal with extreme heat and cold, so the book even if I wanted more technical discussions was informational and interesting. That’s my kind of book.

[Mercutio · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book, Braving the Elements, The Stormy History of American Weather is a book by David Laskin detailing the weather events and the growing threat of global warming. Along with the industry of forecasting and meteorological science. He features a variety of subjects such as the disappearance of the Anasazi, a native people of America. The weather in colonial America and the current turmoil in the atmosphere that we call global warming. I would sincerely recommend this book to anyone interested in meteorology,

[Laura Boudreau · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting look the the history of weather in our country, from the earliest Native American settlements through the impact of Benjamin Franklin, the dust bowl of the Depression years, and the advent of technology from mid- to late twentieth century, concluding with an introduction to the National Weather Service. Great stuff!

[pianogal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally got to this one after having it checked out on and off for about a year. It's a little out of date, having been written 26 years ago, but the middle section is still good. The last chapter on global warming kinda reads like a futuristic flying car. It doesn't work as well as it did initially. Wish there was a little more about the weather itself, but overall not a bad read.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Braving the Elements opened with the importance of climate to the various peoples of the American southwest, shifted to the settlers’ growing appreciation of how diverse the North American continent was, and then trailed off with the growth of weather forecasting in the United States. It falls into that dreaded “Interesting, but Forgettable” category.

[Sandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this approach to dealing with weather .i had read the Childrens Blizzard and this book met the same standards I was looking to read about .it was a new way of talking about the weather

[Mary Shafer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seriously, I just cannot say enough about how much I like David Laskin's writing, at least about weather. Haven't read his other stuff yet, but if it's anything like this book or The Children's Blizzard, it must be awesome. Now granted, I am a total weather geek, but his are the kind of books I can start reading in the morning and find myself still glued to in late afternoon, not having ventured off the recliner since I started. I specifically wait to read his books until I have such uninterrupted time available, just so I don't make myself nuts from wanting to go back and read, despite whatever else I should be doing.

He writes with the epic research of a journalist, the eye for detail of a novelist, and the sensibilities of another storm nut. So if you've ever wondered how the United States National Weather Service got to where it is today, here's your best book. It ain't always a pretty story -- in fact, some of the history is really quite disturbing -- but it's a great read. Highly recommended.