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The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square
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Product Description
New Orleans is the most elusive of American cities. The product of the centuries-long struggle among three mighty empires--France, Spain, and England--and among their respective American colonies and enslaved African peoples, it has always seemed like a foreign port to most Americans, baffled as they are by its complex cultural inheritance.
The World That Made New Orleans offers a new perspective on this insufficiently understood city by telling the remarkable story of New Orleans’s first century--a tale of imperial war, religious conflict, the search for treasure, the spread of slavery, the Cuban connection, the cruel aristocracy of sugar, and the very different revolutions that created the United States and Haiti. It demonstrates that New Orleans already had its own distinct personality at the time of Louisiana’s statehood in 1812. By then, important roots of American music were firmly planted in its urban swamp--especially in the dances at Congo Square, where enslaved Africans and African Americans appeared en masse on Sundays to, as an 1819 visitor to the city put it, “rock the city.”
This book is a logical continuation of Ned Sublette’s previous volume, Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo, which was highly praised for its synthesis of musical, cultural, and political history. Just as that book has become a standard resource on Cuba, so too will The World That Made New Orleans long remain essential for understanding the beautiful and tragic story of this most American of cities.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #24692 in Books
- Published on: 2008-01-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 368 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this thoughtful, well-researched history, Sublette (Cuba and Its Music) charts the development of New Orleans, from European colonization through the Haitian revolution (which was crucial to French and American negotiations over Louisiana) to the Louisiana Purchase. Central to his account are the African slaves, who began arriving in New Orleans in 1719, and their contributions to the city's musical life. He considers, for example, how musical influences from different parts of Africa—Kongo drumming and Senegambian banjo playing—combined to forge a distinctive musical culture. Sublette also lucidly discusses New Orleans' important role in the domestic slave trade, arguing persuasively that the culture of slavery in New Orleans was different from that in Virginia or South Carolina. In New Orleans, there was a large population of free blacks, and slaves there had greater relative freedom than elsewhere. Furthermore, by the early 19th century, Louisiana was home to more African-born slaves than the Upper South. Those factors, which helped perpetuate African religion and dance, combined to offer an alternative path of development for African American culture. As our nation continues to ponder the future of the Big Easy, Sublette offers an informative accounting of that great city's past. 20 b&w photos. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"This articulate and intensely researched history provides not only an impressive look at its subject but also should serve as a model for any future works on great American cities. Cultural studies and history do not get much better than this, a must read for anyone who wonders why this city must be saved." —Booklist
"An unmatchable snapshot of the exhilarating yet often ugly 1960s soul music scene." —Kirkus Reviews
"Made me weep." —The New Yorker
"A fresh a very readable book of scholarship . . . Sublette gets contemporary New Orleans." —The Times Picayune
"With staggering erudition and dazzling style, Sublette weaves things you always wanted to know together in a harmonious whole." —Madison Smartt Bell, author, Toussaint Louverture and All Souls' Rising
"The best argument yet for why we need to save New Orleans." —The Boston Globe
"A compelling portrait of the city as a capital of the Caribbean, an irrepressible source of artistic and political creativity." —Laurent Dubois, author, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution
"With great detail and talented telling, Sublette especially chronicles the paths slaves took to New Orleans and how those paths led to the city’s personality today." —The Tampa Tribune
About the Author
Ned Sublette is the author of Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo. Cofounder of the record label Qbadisc, he coproduced the public radio program Afropop Worldwide for seven years. A writer, record producer, and musician, he lives in New York City.
Customer Reviews
World That Made New Orleans
Ned Sublette, author of Cuba and Its Music, embarks on a daring undertaking in a detailed and complete history of the Big Easy. Sublette spent the 2004-2005 year in New Orleans, leaving just three months before Hurricane Katrina hit and the levees broke, changing the city forever; making this book all the more meaningful and emotional.
With extensive research, Sublette starts at the very beginning, explaining the topography and geology of the Mississippi River and the substantial yet flooded Mississippi Delta, and how there was simply nothing that could really be built there before the advent of water pumps created the potential for draining of the area. In a time when the land that would one day be Louisiana was being fought over and used by the Spanish, French, and British, while every piece of natural resource in this part of the world was being used for the benefit of the Western World, coupled with the unceasing influx of slaves, a group of settlers began a town that would one day become the great city of New Orleans. Inhabitants included an influx of forced citizens from France consisting of prostitutes and convicts.
From its genesis, New Orleans was composed of an entire world of nationalities, cultures, faiths, and languages. Like the spine of the book, Sublette uses music as the backbone of The World That Made New Orleans, discussing the influences and developments of these different people, many of them slaves. It is a city that, after the catastrophic events of Hurricane Katrina, will never be the same - like New York missing the World Trade Center skyline. Thankfully, Sublette does an incredible job of revealing the many chapters in the history of New Orleans.
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Checked out from the library and purchased when it came time to renew. Hope a Kindle version is ready soon.
I checked this book out when I was planning a trip to New Orleans. Initially I thought it was not what I was looking for but Ned Sublette's style was so laid back and appealing that I kept on turning the pages. When the time came for me to return the book, I wasn't done so I purchased it. The history is fascinating and rich in detail as to why New Orleans is decidedly Caribbean in its history and culture. I never knew how much the Spanish had influenced the creation of New Orleans. I really enjoyed the intricate history of how the French, Haitians, Cubans and Americans also came into play. My only complaint is that there was so little mention of the Native American's influence that I am unsure if that is because they had no real influence or if they were just overlooked.
I hope the publisher comes out with a digital edition of this book. I would love to have it on my Kindle. Like Charles C. Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, it is the sort of book I would like to have handy to consult or re-read sections of.
A dizzying tour de force
Ned Sublette is one of the brightest minds alive today. His fusion of historical detail, cultural development and human insight is a wonder to behold. If you think that you know something about American history and its antecedents think again, Sublette has redrawn the map of where we came from and the multiplicity of determinants that brought us to where we are today.
Not Since Robert Farris Thompson has anyone brought to bear such a feast of intellectual gifts and profound freedom from dogma. A work of unrivaled erudition.
