Eric Jay Dolin
A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes
From the moment European colonists laid violent claim to this land, hurricanes have had a profound and visceral impact on American history—yet, no one has attempted to write the definitive account of America’s entanglement with these meteorological behemoths.
Eric Jay Dolin presents the five-hundred-year story of American hurricanes, from the nameless storms that threatened Columbus’ New World voyages, to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the escalation of hurricane season as a result of global warming.
Weaving a story of shipwrecks and devastated cities, of heroism and folly, Dolin introduces a rich cast of characters, including Benjamin Franklin, Ernest Hemingway, Katherine Hepburn, and Steven Spielberg. He puts us in the middle of the most devastating storms of the past, none worse than the Galveston hurricane of 1900, which killed at least 6,000 people, the highest toll of any natural disaster in American history.
A necessary work of environmental and cultural history, A Furious Sky will change the way we understand the storms on the horizon of America’s future.
Eric Jay Dolin is the author of and A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes (2020), Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates (2018), Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse (2016), When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail (2016), Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America (2012), Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America (2010), and more. A Furious Sky was selected as a “Must Read” book by the Massachusetts Center for the Book for 2021.