description Donald Worster Overview
Donald Worster is an American environmental historian whose scholarship examines water, agriculture, ecology, and the history of the American West. His 1979 book Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s explains the disaster through the interaction of severe drought, farming practices, land use, and economic pressures. His work is useful to readers studying environmental history, western history, and the relationship between human institutions and ecological change.
help Donald Worster FAQ
What is Donald Worster’s The Dust Bowl about?
The Dust Bowl, published in 1979, examines the ecological and social crisis that affected the Southern Plains during the 1930s. Worster connects drought and erosion with farming practices, land markets, and economic pressure.
Why is Donald Worster important to environmental history?
Worster helped establish environmental history as a field that studies relationships among nature, economic systems, and human institutions. His work showed that environmental disasters also have political and social histories.
What is Rivers of Empire by Donald Worster about?
Rivers of Empire, published in 1985, analyzes water development and irrigation in the American West. It argues that large-scale water control helped shape western economies and concentrated political power.
Did Donald Worster blame the Dust Bowl only on drought?
No. His analysis treats drought as one part of a larger crisis involving intensive cultivation, commercial agriculture, and the economic pressures of the 1930s.
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