03630nam 2200673Ia 450 991095531600332120200520144314.09780674065444067406544197806740689330674068939(CKB)2560000000082515(OCoLC)794003983(CaPaEBR)ebrary10568021(SSID)ssj0000654162(PQKBManifestationID)11444871(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000654162(PQKBWorkID)10661011(PQKB)10363166(Au-PeEL)EBL3301078(CaPaEBR)ebr10568021(MiAaPQ)EBC3301078(Perlego)1146974(EXLCZ)99256000000008251520110825d2012 uy 0engurcn|||||||||txtccrThe accidental city improvising New Orleans /Lawrence N. PowellCambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press20121 online resource (449 p.) Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph9780674725904 0674725905 9780674059870 0674059875 Includes bibliographical references and index."Should stand for years as the definitive history of New Orleans's first century." -Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post This is the story of a city that shouldn't exist. In the seventeenth century, what is now America's most beguiling metropolis was nothing more than a swamp: prone to flooding, infested with snakes, battered by hurricanes. But through the intense imperial rivalries of Spain, France, and England, and the ambitious, entrepreneurial merchants and settlers from four continents who risked their lives to succeed in colonial America, this unpromising site became a crossroads for the whole Atlantic world.Lawrence N. Powell, a decades-long resident and observer of New Orleans, gives us the full sweep of the city's history from its founding through Louisiana statehood in 1812. We see the Crescent City evolve from a French village, to an African market town, to a Spanish fortress, and finally to an Anglo-American center of trade and commerce. We hear and feel the mix of peoples, religions, and languages from four continents that make the place electric-and always on the verge of unraveling. The Accidental City is the story of land-jobbing schemes, stock market crashes, and nonstop squabbles over status, power, and position, with enough rogues, smugglers, and self-fashioners to fill a picaresque novel.Powell's tale underscores the fluidity and contingency of the past, revealing a place where people made their own history. This is a city, and a history, marked by challenges and perpetual shifts in shape and direction, like the sinuous river on which it is perched. FrenchLouisianaNew OrleansHistorySpaniardsLouisianaNew OrleansHistoryBritishLouisianaNew OrleansHistorySlaveryLouisianaNew OrleansHistoryNew Orleans (La.)History17th centuryNew Orleans (La.)History18th centuryFrenchHistory.SpaniardsHistory.BritishHistory.SlaveryHistory.976.3/35Powell Lawrence N1813059MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910955316003321The accidental city4365812UNINA