It was night time, Inspector Thompson wrote. Those in the plane were transfixed with delight to look down from the windows and see the amazing spectacle of a whole city lighted up. Washington represented something immensely precious. Freedom, hope, strength. We had not seen an illuminated city for two years. My heart filled.

American political discourse had framed the Jewish problem as an immigration problem. Germany's persecution of Jews raised the specter of a vast influx of Jewish refugees at a time when America was reeling from the Depression.

He embodied the hubris that so marked the last turn of the century when America believed it could do whatever it wanted, wherever it wanted, and could even override nature.

There was this great sense of hubris that America and Galveston -- Galveston in particular --was going places, could do no wrong, ... Isaac's Storm.