The Four Winds is very much a novel of social and political American history. It covers that period in the 20th century known as ‘The Great Depression’, but it focuses in on the environmental disaster that coincided with the economic depression and the huge shift of migration from the agricultural interior to the west coast. I studied a unit back at university (way, way, back) on the social and cultural geography of North America. We touched on all regions as an overview and then needed to select two for our specific analysis. I didn’t actually pick the region that contained the areas in this novel known as ‘The Dust Bowl’, but I was introduced to the history in a brief way during the overview. Even with knowing that this combined economic and environmental disaster had occurred, I honestly had no appreciation of the gravity of it.
She will discover the best of herself in the worst of times . .