Films by Ken Burns
The Dust Bowl is a four part series that chronicles the worst human-induced environmental disaster in history. A frenzied wheat boom, followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s, destroyed much of the American and Canadian prairies through wind erosion. Blizzards killed agricultural crops and animals, threatened many other lives and forced thousands of people to pack up and move somewhere else. The series shows vivid interviews with twenty-six survivors from the dust storms, combined with dramatic photographs and footage from the era, recounting the stories of incredible human suffering at the hands of industrial agriculture—a linear system that destroys top-soil and exploits the land for quick surplus. The series also reveals a morality tale about how this culture exploits the land that sustains us—a lesson we ignore at our peril.