The Great Deluge

Historian Douglas Brinkley, who lives and teaches in New Orleans, provides a comprehensive account of the events of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, as well as an analysis of the reasons why this natural disaster became a man-made tragedy. His detailed reporting of the hours and days before, during, and after the disaster seems to leave nothing out, and it is the human dimension, based on a huge number of interviews with survivors, responders, and officials that provides the often disheartening, but occasionally uplifting, aspect of the immense story.