Braving the Elements

By David Laskin

Book Overview

Nowhere in the world is weather as volatile and powerful as it is in North America. Scorching heat in the Southwest, hurricanes on the Atlantic coast, tornadoes in the Plains, blizzards in the mountains: Every area of the country has vastly different weather, and vastly different cultures as a result. Braving the Elements is David Laskin's delightful and fascinating history of how our unique weather has shaped a nation, and how we've tried to cope with it over centuries.

Since before Columbus, the peoples of America have struggled to make sense of the capricious and violent nature of America's weather. Anasazi Indians used the rain dance (and sometimes human sacrifice) to induce rain, while the Puritans in New England blamed the sins of the community for lightening strikes and Nor'easters. IN modern times we carry on those traditions by blaming the weatherman for ruined weekends. Despite hi-tech satellites and powerful computers and 24-hour-a-day forecasting from The Weather Channel, we're still at the mercy of the whims of Mother Nature.

Laskin recounts the many dramatic moments in American weather history, from the "Little Ice Age" to Ben Franklin's invention of the lightning rod to the Great Blizzard of the 1930's to the worries about global warming. Packed with fresh insights and wonderful lore and trivia, Braving the Elements is unique and essential reading for anyone who's ever asked, "What's it like outside?"

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 038546956X
• ISBN13: 9780385469562
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

THE AMERICAN WEATHER EXPERIENCE

In 'Braving the Elements', Laskin gives us a brief history of American weather and how we have survived, forcast, and endured it. The first part of the book looks at Native American and colonial weather, explaining how our perceptions of the elements were being shaped even then. A fascinating chapter looks at the West and the Great Plains, describing the tornadoes, blizzards and dust storms common to the region. The book's second half covers the National Weather Service and present-day meteorology, showing how technology has changed the art of weather forcasting. We see the daily weather report through the eyes of the weather men themselves. Laskin is a great writer whose book will appeal to weather buffs and others alike. I only wish he had spent more time covering specific storms in our history and how they have shaped communities.

weather as history, history as weather

Every other day we get some weather disaster on cnn then forget it. This book gives the larger picture, over time: the patterns and changes, as well as a fascinating history of how weather was viewed and recorded. You'll find lots more here than you would think.

A great read for the weather and history buff!

There have been many books on weather and climate that havepassed through my hands over the last twenty five years.This is one of the more memorable ones. When my brother comes over for a visit I'll go to the bookshelf, pull thisvolume down and read page after page to him. Why? Well, quite simply David Laskin condensed the American climateinto a slender volume that reads like a good novel. Merging modern meteorological understanding and historical research he brings alive the shock European settlers feltwhen they experienced the frigid North American winters andblistering summers. He introduces the reader to theologicalmeteorology, nationalist meteorology, and plain old badmeteorology, all in a style designed to excite and educate the reader."BRAVING TH