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The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans (2012)

by Lawrence N. Powell(Favorite Author)

3.74 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0674059875 (ISBN13: 9780674059870)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Harvard University Press

review 1: Really good history of early New Orleans (founding through the Louisiana Purchase). I came away with a much better understanding of why and how New Orleans is the unique city that it is: the shifting economic pressures (in parallel, but not always caused by, shifting ruling governments) as well as the constantly fluctuating "rules" around slavery meant that New Orleans was truly a foreign acquisition in 1803.
review 2: Powell directs the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane. He wrote this book as a rejoinder to critics who proclaimed, post-Katrina, that the city should be allowed to sink back into the river mud from which it arose three centuries ago. He explained how Spain's (Catholic) manumission laws affected the rise of a tripartite racial orde... morer--white, free people of color, and African slaves. He mentioned the exact year (1764) and reason for the Jesuits' expulsion from Louisiana. He detailed the work of the Ursulines (nuns) in nurturing Catholicism in the wild frontier town across racial boundaries and social strata. Absolutely the best scholarly treatment I've seen for explaining New Orleans' complex racial hierarchy. I took notes and copied out several passages I want to quote in Chapter 1 of my own book. less

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