Choice
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

This book is meticulously researched, yet it will be tremendously accessible to all readers. Best-selling author Dolin's gripping treatment of one of nature's most deadly recent events first takes readers back to earlier days of recorded storm history, recalling the close call experienced by Columbus in 1502, then returns to recent well-known storms: Katrina, Maria, and Sandy. In its 300 pages, his text provides in broad strokes a review of the recent history of hurricanes as told through interesting personal accounts. The scientific and policy details of the covered storms are left to other texts. Dolin has been a prolific popularizer of American whaling and westward expansion history, including the early US effort to profit from the China trade, having previously authored Leviathan (CH, Dec'07, 45-2211), Fur, Fortune, and Empire (CH, May'11, 48-5284), and When America First Met China (CH, Mar'13, 50-3991). The present book concludes with an ominous warning: climate change will bring us storms that are more deadly, costly, and destructive, more often than ever before. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Donna Marie Braquet, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Publishers Weekly
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Historian Dolin (Black Flags, Blue Waters) delivers a fast-paced and informative history of American hurricanes from the 16th century through the 2017 season, when a record-setting three storms made landfall. Though Dolin’s question of “how we can learn to survive and adapt” to hurricanes in the era of climate change doesn’t receive deep analysis, the book successfully documents the impact of storms such as the 1900 Galveston Hurricane (in which an estimated 8,000–10,000 people died) and the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, which killed hundreds of WWI veterans building the Overseas Highway in the Florida Keys. Milestones in the scientific understanding of hurricanes include Father Benito Viñes’s observational studies in 19th-century Cuba and the U.S. military’s “Hurricane Hunter” flights, which began in WWII and employed new radar technology to capture real-time data from inside storms; the information was eventually used to create computer models to predict hurricane behavior. Dolin also explains hurricane naming conventions and credits Dan Rather’s 1961 Hurricane Carla broadcasts, which showed radar images of the storm, with changing how they’re reported. Packed with intriguing miscellanea, this accessible chronicle serves as a worthy introduction to the subject. Readers will be awed by the power of these storms and the wherewithal of people to recover from them. Agent: Russell Galen, The Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency. (June)

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Dolin (Black Flags, Blue Waters, 2018) tackles the history of hurricanes and how they've impacted the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic regions of the U.S. Spanning the centuries from Columbus arriving in the Caribbean to the recent epic and politically charged disasters of Hurricanes Katrina and Maria, Dolin's weather drama reveals just how horrific these monster storms can be. But this compelling book is much more than a meteorological history, it is a remarkably human story of people struggling with nature at its fiercest and the myriad ways hurricanes have affected the course of human events. The damaging winds and surging water likely changed the outcome of wars and presidential elections. Many of those true tales of survival and loss will tug at the readers’ heartstrings as Dolin makes them vivid and memorable. He also chronicles the intellectual history of individual meteorologists on quests to understand the dynamics, predict the patterns, and mitigate the damage of hurricanes. Dolin illuminates how much technology and careful scientific and civic organization and coordination have helped better prepare Americans for hurricane season. But, despite radar and satellites, the paths of these ferocious storms can never be fully predicted and Dolin presents the consensus view that global warming will only make hurricanes stronger in the future.

Library Journal
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Dolin (Leviathan) continues his series of popular histories with nautical or coastal themes with this exploration of hurricanes in the United States, deftly weaving together tales of tragedy, heroism, and scientific progress from colonial times until the present. Focusing on major storms and their impacts on the history of the United States, he draws from contemporaneous accounts to evoke the drama and power of these destructive storms. Meteorological advancements in our understanding of how hurricane storm systems form, grow, and travel as well as improvements in tracking and predictions have resulted in lower fatality rates, but growing population centers along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts have also meant increases in economic devastation. Many of the historic storms have entire books dedicated to them, but Emanuel's High Winds is the only similar comprehensive recent work on this topic, though its approach to the meteorological aspects is much more equation- and graph-heavy. A final chapter discusses the possible ramifications of global warming on hurricane formation, intensity, and impact. VERDICT Weather watchers, science buffs, and social historians will enjoy this history of the hurricane both as a chronology and for the individual tales of surviving nature's fury.—Wade Lee-Smith, Univ. of Toledo Lib.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

How hurricanes have indelibly shaped America's land and society. Drawing on abundant sources, including material from the National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service, and Hurricane Research Division, and with an academic background in environmental policy, Dolin, who has a doctorate in environmental policy, offers an authoritative and lively history of hurricanes, beginning with 15th-century storms and ending with major hurricanes of 2017 and a brief account of Hurricane Dorian of last year. Besides chronicling the tense period leading up to landfall, the violent impact, the immediate responses, and the long-term recoveries, the author offers a fascinating history of weather forecasting, which was revolutionized by the telegraph in the mid-19th century. The Smithsonian Institution became the first repository of meteorological information when telegraph operators were instructed to send a message each morning describing the weather: cloudy, fair, or rainy. Soon, they added readings from meteorological instruments, making their forecasts more useful. In 1870, the U.S. Army Signal Corps took over weather forecasting, creating maps that could “predict the progression of weather over time.” But accuracy eluded forecasters until airplanes, satellites, radar, and computers came into play—and even then, controversy sometimes erupted about the intensity and course of a storm. Dolin traces many major events: “a storm surge of biblical proportions” in Galveston, Texas, in 1900; the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926; the Labor Day Hurricane that swept through the Florida Keys in 1935; the “sudden, jarring, widespread, and devastating” Great Hurricane of 1938; Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Katrina in 2005, and Sandy, which besieged New York City in 2012. Efforts to control hurricanes, such as seeding clouds with dry ice or silver iodide, failed. Other proposals, such as towing icebergs from the Arctic to cool the ocean and diminish a storm’s energy, were “outlandish and totally impractical.” Dolin underscores the threat of global warming to worsen hurricanes and urges society to act quickly and boldly “to counter this threat in any way we can.” A sweeping, absorbing history of nature's power. (118 illustrations) Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.