An unflinching look at Charleston, a beautiful, endangered port city, founded by English settlers in 1669 as a hub of the sugar and slave trades, which now, as the waters rise, stands at the intersection of climate and race.

Unbeknownst to the tourists who visit the charming streets of the Charleston peninsula, rapidly rising sea levels and increasingly devastating storms are mere years away from rendering the city uninhabitable. Weaving science, narrative history, and the family stories of Black Charlestonians, Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm chronicles the tumultuous recent past in the life of the city – from protests to hurricanes – while illuminating the escalating riskiness of its future. Charleston’s vulnerability is emblematic of vast portions of global coastlines that are likely to be chronically inundated in just a few decades. In Charleston, as in other global cities, little planning is underway to ensure a thriving future for all residents.

Charleston, by Harvard Law School professor and author Susan Crawford, tells the story of a city that has played a central role in America’s painful racial history for centuries.

Foreword by Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize winning author of On Juneteenth.

‘It’s a book that I wish every community could have for facing economic inequality, racial injustice and climate change. In a blend of history, policy, science and journalism, Crawford brings Charleston to life and reveals why the city is a harbinger for the United States and the world.’ 
— Laura Trethewey, author of Imperiled Ocean: Human Stories from a Changing Sea

‘Charleston is a ghost story for the climate age, a sweeping and unflinching analysis of how a history of racism, greed, and political cowardice is creating a wet dystopian future for an iconic American city. Read this book and you’ll understand the enormity of the challenges that coastal cities face in a rapidly warming world, and why people are fighting for change before it’s too late.’                                                                                                                              
— Jeff Goodell, bestselling author of The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World

‘The precarious situation in which this low-lying city finds itself is a microcosm of many other cities by a rising sea. But this is a story of people and not just policy . . . A powerful portrait of the cost of climate denial coming due.’ 
— David Goodrich, former head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Observations and Monitoring Program, former Director of the UN Global Climate Observing System, and author of On Freedom Road 

‘The perfect storm: the US city where rising sea levels and racism collide’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/04/charleston-south-carolina-racist-mistakes-rising-sea-levels

‘The Unequal Racial Burdens of Rising Seas’

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/10/books/review/charleston-susan-crawford.html?smid=url-share

‘Q&A with Susan Crawford, author of ‘Charleston: Race, Water and the Coming Storm’

https://www.postandcourier.com/features/q-a-with-susan-crawford-author-of-charleston-race-water-and-the-coming-storm/article_93b8bf9a-d567-11ed-acbd-f3ca5019dbe6.html

Susan Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She previously was Obama’s special assistant to the president for science, technology, and innovation policy and co-led the FCC transition team between his and the Bush administrations. Earlier in her career, Crawford was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. As an academic, she teaches courses about climate adaptation and public leadership.

Crawford is the author of several books, including Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age and Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution and Why America Might Miss It.