"A Touchstone book." Includes bibliographical references (pages 481-496) and index.

Prologue -- Part 1: The Engineers -- Part 2: Senator Percy -- Part 3: The River -- Part 4: The Club -- Chapter 5: The Great Humanitarian -- Chapter 6: The Son -- Chapter 7: The Club -- Chapter 8: The Great Humanitarian -- Chapter 9: The Leaving of the Waters -- Appendix -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments and Methodology -- Index. An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known -- the Mississippi flood of 1927. The river inundated the homes of nearly one million people, helped elect Huey Long governor and made Herbert Hoover president, drove hundreds of thousands of blacks north, and transformed American society and politics forever. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Lillian Smith Award.