Synopses & Reviews
The flooding and chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina became a disaster of unprecedented proportions, wreaking a level of destruction and human suffering that would have seemed unimaginable in twenty-first-century America. They also exposed the deadly potential of not only nature, but of poverty, racism, and political neglect.
Bad Luck and Trouble: The Making of the Great Flood of 2005combines eyewitness accounts, blogs, and interviews with other original materials, from historical documents to contemporary reports, blues lyrics to leaked government memos.
Bad Luck and Troubledemonstrates that the suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina was not spawned by an overnight disaster. Its makings stem as far back as to over a century ago when the Army Corps of Engineers redrew the environmental map of the region (often in service of powerful oil, petrochemical, and agricultural interests), and the disaster's ramifications are as far-reaching as the gentrification and racial cleansing of major regions in the South and the dismantling of federal social programs that will affect all of America.
Bad Luck and Troubleis a crucial look at what the Great Flood of 2005 tells us about race and class in America, and the true state of US "national security."
About the Author
Currently the Washington correspondant for the Village Voice, James Ridgeway has also written for Harper's, The Economist, The New York Times Magazine,The Nation, The New Republic, Parade, Ramparts, and The Wall Street Journal, authored over fifteen books, and co-directed the films Blood in the Face, and Feed.