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A review by sdbecque
The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square by Ned Sublette
4.0
Ok, don't get me wrong. In many places this book is very dry. Mainly it focuses on the colonial history of New Orleans, which is to say he spends a lot of time detailing movements by the French and Spanish royalty. Still New Orleans has a pretty crazy history and it makes for pretty entertaining reading.
It started really dry and then it really picked up, certain parts of this are more engaging than others. Especially noteworthy are the frank passages on slavery. Sublette talks frankly about aspects of slavery that are routinely downplayed in American historical discussions. Moreover, his discussion of the reluctance of historians to acknowledge the probability of the Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings relations.
"New Orleans was a dissolute town from the beginning. The crooks and whores were unsuited by experience and temperament for artisanship or agriculture, but were well prepared to establish a culture of criminality and poverty.
"[The Indians after Katrina] As they tried to rebuild their lives and their community, they sewed their suits in the dark, empty city. You don't go to those lengths for folklore. This was a sacramental act. These were men who had fought all their lives against the amnesia that is slavery's legacy...They played tambourines and sang as they moved through the empty, twisted ghost town of the Lower Ninth Ward, where six months after the disaster the people were still gone and houses sat on top of upside down cars. They refused to cooperate in their own erasure. They were still men, and these were still their streets. They wouldn't bow down. They rocked the city with their Congo dances."
This book is good, very good. Highly recommend it to anyone planning a trip to New Orleans.
Here's the order you should do it in: Read this book. Watch the first season of Treme, go to New Orleans.
It started really dry and then it really picked up, certain parts of this are more engaging than others. Especially noteworthy are the frank passages on slavery. Sublette talks frankly about aspects of slavery that are routinely downplayed in American historical discussions. Moreover, his discussion of the reluctance of historians to acknowledge the probability of the Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings relations.
"New Orleans was a dissolute town from the beginning. The crooks and whores were unsuited by experience and temperament for artisanship or agriculture, but were well prepared to establish a culture of criminality and poverty.
"[The Indians after Katrina] As they tried to rebuild their lives and their community, they sewed their suits in the dark, empty city. You don't go to those lengths for folklore. This was a sacramental act. These were men who had fought all their lives against the amnesia that is slavery's legacy...They played tambourines and sang as they moved through the empty, twisted ghost town of the Lower Ninth Ward, where six months after the disaster the people were still gone and houses sat on top of upside down cars. They refused to cooperate in their own erasure. They were still men, and these were still their streets. They wouldn't bow down. They rocked the city with their Congo dances."
This book is good, very good. Highly recommend it to anyone planning a trip to New Orleans.
Here's the order you should do it in: Read this book. Watch the first season of Treme, go to New Orleans.