
October 6, 2017
As people in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico struggle to recover from storms, the Politics of Disaster is the next edition of Truth, Politics and Power. Host Neal Conan with conversations about how federal policy contributes to catastrophe, how an enormous flood in 1927 changed the way Americans think about the size and role of government , and the secret history of FEMA, the agency created to manage the ultimate disaster…nuclear apocalypse.
GUESTS
John M. Barry
Garrett Graff
Michael Grunwald



John M Barry is the author of Rising Tide: The Great  Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. Barry is the author of several books on topics ranging from the 1927 flood to the deadly flu pandemic of 100 years ago and the fall for House Speaker Jim Wright. He has also written for numerous publications including The New York Times, Fortune and Time magazines.
Garrett Graff is a Contributing Editor at WIRED Magazine and the  author of: Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself – While the Rest of Us Die. He wrote a recent article in WIRED:  The Secret History of FEMA
Michael Grunwald is a senior staff writer for Politico Magazine and the author of The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise. He has also written for the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and Time magazine.
SUGGESTED READING
BY JOHN M. BARRY
How 1927’s Mississippi River Megaflood Changed America
Interview with Christian Science Monitor
August 31, 2017
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America
BY GARRETT GRAFF
Wired Magazine
September 3, 2017
A fresh window on American history: The eye-opening truth about the government’s secret plans to survive a catastrophic attack on US soil—even if the rest of us die—a roadmap that spans from the dawn of the nuclear age to today.
BY MICHAEL GRUNWALD
A Requiem for Florida, the Paradise That Should Never Have Been
Politico Magazine
September 8, 2017
How Washington Made Harvey Worse
Politico Magazine
August 29, 2017
The Swamp. The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise
The Everglades was once reviled as a liquid wasteland, and Americans dreamed of draining it. Now it is revered as a national treasure, and Americans have launched the largest environmental project in history to try to save it. The Swamp is the stunning story of the destruction and possible resurrection of the Everglades, the saga of man’s abuse of nature in southern Florida and his unprecedented efforts to make amends. Michael Grunwald, a prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, takes readers on a riveting journey from the Ice Ages to the present, illuminating the natural, social and political history of one of America’s most beguiling but least understood patches of land.