The Vortex: A True Story of History's Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation

Scott Carney and Jason Miklian. Ecco/HarperCollins. Hardcover 2022 (ISBN 9780062985415), paperback 14 March 2023 (ISBN 9780062985422), e-book and audiobook. Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence; an American Library Association Notable Book in Nonfiction.

The World's Deadliest Storm was Just the Beginning...

Fifty years ago, the Great Bhola Cyclone slammed into then-East Pakistan, a low-lying province about the size of Greece bordered by India and Myanmar. The megastorm hit at midnight during a full moon, generating a ten meter-high wall of water that inundated the world’s largest river delta and everyone living in it. The cyclone killed 500,000 people on landfall, sparked a genocide, triggered a civil war and almost brought the USA and Soviet Union into nuclear conflict.  

The Vortex tells the incredible true story of an unmitigated natural disaster that changed the world order. We tell it through the eyes of its victims,  villains and  heroes. This is not just a story about the painful birth of a new nation, but a universal tale of resilience and liberation in the face of a threat that affects every single person on the planet.

There has never been a more urgent time to show how climate, politics, and war coalesce to bring devastating human fallout. The Vortex weaves these connections together to present a deeply personal, suspenseful account of Bhola’s global impact - and to warn how we are doomed to repeat its mistakes if we don’t learn its lessons.

The storm came ashore in November 1970 on the most densely populated coastline on Earth. The Great Bhola Cyclone killed between 300,000 and 500,000 people in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, most of them in rural districts without systematic death records, and the publisher's figure of 500,000 is the upper estimate. The book follows the storm through the people who lived it: Pakistan's president General Yahya Khan and his friend Richard Nixon, the American expats Jon and Candy Rhode, the footballer turned soldier Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, and the young Bengali revolutionary Mohammed Hai.

East Pakistan had the larger population of the two wings and the smaller share of money and power. Revenue flowed west, decisions were taken in Karachi and Rawalpindi, and the delta that took the brunt of every cyclone got no meaningful investment in flood defences or early warning. Bhola struck as Pakistan approached a national election, and the central government downplayed the scale of the loss and sent resources elsewhere, which turned a demand for autonomy into a demand for independence. Bangladesh achieved independence on 16 December 1971, after a war in which India intervened.

The book sets three forces against each other: the cyclone itself, the exploitation of the eastern wing by the western one, and the Cold War, in which the Nixon administration's alliance with Pakistan shaped what Washington would and would not do while American and Soviet forces converged in the Bay of Bengal. The sources are primary documents, declassified government records and interviews with survivors, aid workers and political figures, and the chapters alternate among the people named above. Readers coming from the climate side will find the second argument, that political marginalization turns into climate vulnerability, worked through on a coast where the 1970 storm showed what that costs.

The hardcover runs to 528 pages, published by Ecco in 2022, with the paperback following on 14 March 2023; e-book and audiobook editions exist, and HarperCollins India publishes its own edition. The book was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence and named an American Library Association Notable Book in Nonfiction.

“Carney and Miklian reveal a long-concealed and profoundly shocking confluence of geopolitical crimes and crises…With propulsive narrative drive and intense specificity, the authors circle among a cast of riveting real-life characters…Deeply involving and harrowing, this commanding work of reclaimed and clarified history is of urgent relevance.”  — Booklist (Starred Review)  

“(Carney and Miklian) effectively translate their exhaustive research into a compelling narrative, cleverly alternating chapters among the perspectives of a diverse range of protagonists. To those who may feel complacent about what happened a half-century ago in a relatively obscure part of the world, Carney and Miklian deliver a stark warning….A powerful, timely exploration of an environmental and political tragedy.” — Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)  

“In this absorbing chronicle, (Carney and Miklian) deliver an essential history of the infuriatingly tragic creation of Bangladesh amid a devastating storm, genocide, war, political intrigue, and hope.” — Library Journal (Starred Review)  “Shot through with colorful character sketches and lucid explanations of South Asian politics, this is an urgent warning about the links between global warming and geopolitical turmoil” — Publisher’s Weekly  

“Scott Carney and Jason Miklian take us on a riveting journey into the deadliest storm ever…The Vortex (is) an urgent wake-up call for our shared global future.” — Michael E. Mann, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Penn State University  

“A tsunami of a book..told through the stories of people who were right there on its frontlines, (who) get the high-octane storytelling they deserve in The Vortex.” — Prof. Naomi Hossain, American University  “This book makes you feel like you're living through the traumatic birth of Bangladesh…An epic tale indeed!” — Bill McKibben, author, environmentalist, and Co-founder of 350.org  

"An utterly gripping story of international political intrigue, natural disaster, and the consequences for millions as refracted through the experiences of the ordinary, powerless people." — Zia Haider Rahman, BBC presenter and author of In the Light of What We Know  

“This is a rich tale of a terrible cyclone and the human folly that deepened the tragedy. Grippingly written, it is both a powerful history of the creation of modern Bangladesh and an urgent warning about our precarious common future on our rapidly heating planet.” — Gary J. Bass, author of The Blood Telegram  

HarperCollins (all formats, with retailer links). Amazon. The Vortex on miklian.org, with the research context and the full record. All books.