Creole World: Photographs of New Orleans and the Latin Caribbean Sphere

The photography is evocative and the essays complement the visual journey. The bump in the road for me is the typeset which is quite small and gray rather than black. The photo captions are even smaller. I think the decision to typeset in this fashion may have been to focus attention on the amazing photos, but the expanses of white space throughout could have been utilized to create a more readable volume. I own the Richard Sexton/Randolph Delehanty classic, New Orleans: Elegance and Decadence. It has a similar size font, but having it in black made a lot of difference for this reader.

This book tells the story of how New Orleans fits into the greater Caribbean Creole world that spreads from Haiti to Cartagena, with colonial tentacles as far away as Chile, Argentina and Reunion. It's a fascinating historical and architectural analysis, told with beautiful color photography and insightful narrative.This volume is not strictly a "coffee table" book, and is as much a sociological analysis as it is an architectural portrait. The architecture portrayed is not limited to high style examples, and includes many images of decayed vernacular buildings. The purpose is to illustrate how the Creole culture sprung from French and Spanish colonial settlement maintained a surprisingly uniform depth independent of its geographic location.In the places explored in these pages, French, Spanish, African and Indigenous populations have mixed to form a local culture as rich as gumbo from Treme.

One can smell the fat cigars, one can taste the aged rum.To those of us who feel most comfortable when embraced within the warm humid arms of the Caribbean basin, this is a beautiful book, a sensuous book -- a visually sumptuous book. With a polite nod to the past, it also delivers us an invitation to the present and to the future of "the Creole World".Despite occasional atmospheric turbulence, there persists a "Creole World" that is unique. Insofar as a mere photograph can convey what that world is -- most of us will provide our own personal scratch-sniff-and-taste test -- this is a visually splendid volume.

This beautifully produced book maps the many points of contact among the Creole cultures of the Greater Caribbean. For anyone who has never traveled outside the USA, it will change their understanding of New Orleans.

Beautiful. Living in New Orleans I am familiar with the work of Richard Sexton and all I can say is that this is the best book yet.

Beautifully done

Everything about this book is lovely: the text, the photographs, the knowledge of Creole cultures. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in such places as New Orleans, La Havana, etc.

The images and analysis are outstanding. Anyone interested in New Orleans and how it relates to the Caribbean, this is a must have.

Great photos. Interesting book.

C'est un livre magnifique, qui offre des photographies magnifiques, et qui montre bien l'unité d'architecture et de culture du monde caribéen, jusqu'en Louisiane.