- July 6, 2021
A Furious Sky with author Eric Jay Dolin. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 4 PM 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. Now, bestselling historian Eric Jay Dolin presents the five-hundred-year story of American hurricanes, from the nameless storms that threatened Columbus’s New World voyages, to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the escalation of hurricane season as a result of climate change. 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, and 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.