This is not a popular history of the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 but a very scholarly books with lots of quotes and footnotes. The book is not really about the flood itself but the impacts the flood had entertainment, literature and the disaster myth. I found the book to be hard to read. The author asks a lot of questions and then proceeds to answer them in as many words as possible. For example The chapter on Bessie Smith is a chapter on music history and music theory. At the end of the book the author tries to tie the 1927 flood with the 2005 Katrina flood but does offer a lot information. The author has done a lot of research and they wanted include all of it. There are some illustrations.