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In Clayton R. Koppes’ Dusty Volumes: Environmental Disaster and Economic Collapse in the 1930s article he begins with how the Farm Security Association took all those memorable photographs and other sources that gave background information on the Dust Bowl. He then starts off by going how the Dust Bowl received little attention because of how it was a natural disaster with “social consequences” (pg. 535). What makes the reading more intriguing is how Koppes seems to bring in ideology into the reading by using Donald Worster’s work. Worster believes the Dust Bowl was the creation of man and their belief in capitalism. Worster then proceeds to give his reasons how capitalist farming has made the land into such a state where man can be blamed for causing the disaster.

Along with Koppes’ reading, there was another reading that also dealt with the Dust Bowl but in a different manner. Geoff Cunfer’s Scaling the Dust Bowl took a more quantitative approach dealing with the Dust Bowl. One of the issues with the usage of quantitative approach in history can be traced to what REBEKAHBENNINGER1 mentions how historians may tend to use the numbers approach as an experiment that could be recreated instead of focusing on the actual argument they are approaching to make. Cunfer does place quantitative data into his work but also places an argument that connects back to what Koppes wrote. Both authors make references to Worster, who seems to blame man and his capitalism for the natural disaster that is the Dust Bowl. If it is to say that Cunfer uses more quantitative data to make his approach on the issue, then Koppes that the more academic approach and presents more for his argument.