The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

The dust bowl is scary in that it happened in relatively recent history and we have learned very little from it. The southern plains of the US were some of the last areas settled. The region was though of as the great American desert, and not very suitable for residents or agriculture. However, it was the last "open land" and was finally gobbled up in the early 20th century. Alas, a combination of factors led to rapid environmental destruction. A boom in grain prices and a adequate precipitation led to farmers plowing everything in site. The excess grain helped, coupled with the onset of the great depression caused prices to tumble. The immediate response was to plow even more land, further depressing prices. With prices so low, many farmers abandoned their fields altogether. And then a drought struck. The land that had once been covered with native grasses had been denuded and just blew away, causing the massive dust storms that spread dust across the country. Meanwhile, the economy was stuck with low grain prices and excess grain nobody wanted to buy. We still see similar aspects repeat. Dotcom and housing bubbles followed a similar economic trap. There is still great tendency to "outsmart" the environment.
The book spends much of the time covering Dalhart, Texas and Boise City, Oklahoma, two cities in the panhandles of their states. Boise City was started as a fraud, falsely advertised by prospectors that didn't even have title to the land. They went to jail, but the city grew. Dalhart sprouted up close to the huge XIT cattle ranch.
Some of the environmental conditions are hard to fathom. The dust was omnipresent, causing dust pneumonia. The big dust storms would bury houses and completely block vision. Grasshopper swarms would later come through and eat everything, even wooden handles of farm implements. There were also the extremes of heat and cold (but those were more "normal"). There was a reason it was called no-man's land. It was amazing how quickly people were able to cause so much damage.
The people living there prided themselves with being self-reliant. However, once things got bad, they were eagerly begging the government to help them get themselves out of the mess. A combination of over-plowing and under planting caused a huge ecological catastrophe that could not be easily repaired individually. (In somewhat ironic twist, when President Roosevelt visited Amarillo, it was pouring down rain.)
The book follows a few people that lived in the area, including the founder of the "last man" club, who ended up decamping to a job in another town. Some others toughed it out longer, but most ended up with pretty much nothing at the end.