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In Isaac’s Storm, Erik Larson brings the reader into the disaster in Galveston on a personal level. He captures the thoughts and actions of individuals involved to bring a realism of the events to the reader. I have read about disaster and other horrible events and thought of them as terrible but this story had me almost in tears on several occasions by affecting me on personal level as a father and a husband. Circumstances he writes about were parents can’t hang on to children or find themselves thinking about which to save is heart wrenching. When terry_christi writes about past events not only being examined historically but also from a personal level, I felt that Larson’s style certainly achieved this and then some. Whether or not this style is appreciated on a scholarly level or not, I found the approach intriguing. Many of his sources were limited and required some insight but I believe that will give it the ability to attract a much larger audience. I love history, but many people do not. If this is something that can attract people to our field then I say why not? Larson did a lot of research with old documents, maps and the use of memoirs so the story does incorporate primary sources from the time the event occurred. It is nice to get the perspective from the smaller walks of life involved in a historical event rather than just the facts or numbers related to it.