Isaac's Storm

Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

• Genre: Nonfiction; weather
• Originally Published: 1999
• Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
• Structure/Length: Prologue, 6 parts; approx. 336 pages; approx. 8 hours, 46 minutes on audio
• Central Concern: On September 8, 1900, a monster hurricane destroyed the seaside town of Galveston, Texas, killing 6,000 people in the greatest natural disaster in American history. Larson chronicles the struggle of Isaac Cline, meteorologist for the US Weather Bureau, and his deadly miscalculation that devastated the town and ultimately killed his wife.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Extreme weather destruction; death

Erik Larson, Author

• Bio: Born in 1954 in Brooklyn, New York; journalist and nonfiction author; studied Russian History at the University of Pennsylvania and  graduated summa cum laude; graduated from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; inspired to pursue journalism by the movie All the President’s Men; featured writer for Time and The Wall Street Journal; stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, and The Atlantic Monthly; has taught nonfiction writing at San Francisco State University, University of Oregon, and the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars
• Other Works: The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities (1992); Lethal Passage (1994); The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (2002); The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (2020)
• Awards: Louis J. Battan Author’s Award (2002)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• American Hubris at the Turn of the Century
• The Effect of Politics on Severe Weather
• Interrogating the Great Man Theory of History

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts regarding America’s hubris at the turn of the 20th century that impact Isaac’s judgment regarding the Galveston hurricane.
• Analyze paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s themes of American Hubris at the Turn of the Century, The Effect of Politics on Severe Weather, and Interrogating the Great Man Theory of History.
• Design a movie poster that conveys important quotes and symbols from Isaac’s Storm.
• Analyze and evaluate themes and literary techniques to draw conclusions in structured essay responses regarding the role of racism and the news media in the narrative of the Galveston hurricane.