The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square by Sublette, Ned(January 1, 2008) Hardcover

I just returned from an eleven days trip to New Orleans to enjoy the Jazz Fest (along with the food, culture, architecture and ambience of the city.)This book was a tremendous help in appreciating all of the above. A morning meditation on the pages enhanced my experience immensely, from getting a sense of the history of the French Quarter to a solemn early morning sojourn to Congo Square.

This is a well-researched and beautifully written book that will grab your attention from the first chapter. From the early chapters about the Creole population to the last chapter about the Mardi Gras Indians, Sublette both informs and entertains the reader, explaining why and how New Orleans has always been unique. I particularly enjoyed a fascinating page about how streets were named. You will finish this book with new knowledge about how the histories and cultures of France, Cuba, Spain, and Haiti all intertwined to influence New Orleans.My only disappointment came at the end of the book when the author took a strange and misguided swipe at some imagined conspiracy of Republicans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Without any evidence or cogent argument, he claims that Republicans, for political purposes, conspired to drive African American New Orleanians out of the city. That passage in the book, as well as a critique of President Thomas Jefferson that had very little to do with the subject of the book, should have been edited out of what is otherwise a very fine book.

I lived in New Orleans for 30 years, and I thought I knew a lot about the place. I found out that my knowledge was actually close to absolute zero. This book is very well written. It glides along, never made me put it down because it was too dense with jumbled information. I do not read a lot of non-fiction--I like historical mysteries, and I am not a patient reader. But the history of my adopted city-- which I grew to love, where my kids were born and grew up, and where Hurricane Katrina finally cleared out my house so I didn't have to choose what to get rid of before moving to Africa-- was a fascinating subject. I recommend it to anyone who has ever been to New Orleans and fell in love with it, to anyone who lives there, ever did live there, or anyone who thinks they already know the city well. It's a revelation.

Lots of good information about the cultural history of New Orleans, with interesting observations about the effects of different imperial powers (French, Spanish, U.S.) on the region, the complexity of race relations against the background of the slave trade, and the strong Caribbean influence from Cuba and Haiti. It's pretty well written and entertaining, but I had two problems with it: first, the author goes out on lots of limbs to speculate about possible cultural origins of New Orleans music--a lot of "it's possible that" and "it's not unreasonable to assume", when an actual musicologist would be reluctant to make such connections. Second, the book lacks some cohesion, often relaying piles of information without tying it all together, particularly at the end when it comes to a crashing stop and shifts gears to suddenly talk about Mardi Gras Indians in the aftermath of Katrina.

Ned Sublette has captured the cultural history of New Orleans in a way that connects the present to the past in some fascinating details for anybody familiar with the city. His explanation of the Chef Mentor Highway as derived from local Native Americans is accurate and yet hilarious. Mr. Sublette has carefully integrated several elements of culture from the racial inputs and how they developed and the national inputs of France and Spain, but he continues through detail such as the music we all revere and the origins in Africa as well as Santiago, Cuba. If you have any curiosity about how New Orleans came together as a unique city, this book will satisfy you and do it in a way that is entertaining as well as enlightening. While Ned Sublette does not hold anything back from the politics and economics of slavery, he does provide the nuances that are often missing from ideological versions of slavery and he shows the cultural connections with specific African locations as well as the Caribbean sites and the power of Virginia in the economic changes exported to New Orleans. I recommend this book highly for its detail and easy readability. It is a truly great history.George Giacoppe

I bought this book prior to traveling to New Orleans for the first time. The book turned out to be a gripping encyclopaedia of one of the most interesting cities in North America - full of historical facts but still drawing on the present. When I visited New Orleans I recognised many of the places that were described in the book as well as the cultural and musical influences. Other historical books make for dry reading, but it is obvious that this one was written with a lot of love.

A brilliantly written history of a fascinating city. The author's style is very accessible and easy to read but it is well-referenced and well-researched. An excellent introduction to the unique culture of New Orleans but also very informative on general European and North American and Caribbean history too. Highly recommended.

I haven't ready the book yet. I bought it and was excited to read it, but when it arrived I was absolutely shocked at the quality of the printing. It looks like maybe a first printing was done, then when it came time for a reprint perhaps they had lost the original files and decided to scan each page of the book back in as black and white photos, and then printed that? I don't what to tell you, but every page is covered in little dots rather than white paper, and the text itself is barely readable – looks bitmapped rather than PostScript, and the photo reproductions look like they were done on a cheap photocopier. I am returning the book. I know that Sublette is a brilliant writer - his book on Cuban music is an absolute treasure. So I was really disappointed that the publisher would choose to treat this book so poorly. I contacted the publisher but never received a response, so I don't really know the full story.... but I would suggest avoiding this book, and maybe try to pick it up from a library or used where you can check the quality before you buy/borrow. That's what I will try to do.

Um mehr über Louisiana und seine Geschichte zu erfahren,ist dieses Buch ultimativ!Es gibt unglaublich viel Information über die zahlreichen Einflüsse der verschiedenen Besetzer und ihrer kulturellen Einflüsse während der unterschiedlichen Epochen ,sodass man plötzlich vieles am heutigen Zustand nachvollziehen kann.Die Art der Schilderung ist nicht trocken sondern faszinierend und man kann jederzeit auch wieder auf einzelne Kapitel zurück gehen,wenn man beim Lesen von Büchern über die Region sich nochmal erinnern möchte.Die Geschichte Louisianas ist unglaublich vielfältig und sämtliche Einflüsse sind heute noch zu spüren.Das Buch ist sehr zu empfehlen für Menschen,die sich für diese Gegend interessieren!

This book is truly entertaining and very readable. Full of interesting detail it nevertheless provides an excellent overview of its subject.