Lawrence N. Powell

I don’t typically judge a book by its acknowledgements, but the Accidental City had pages of acknowledgement so turgid that one suspected they were not driven by genuine gratitude or humility but instead by a swollen pride and self-regard. It was this tone that marred much of the good work in this history of New Orleans from its founding to the Battle of New Orleans. As an example, the author seemed not to trust the reader to remember allusions and characters referenced pages earlier and hence themes and anecdotes were repreated presumably to refresh the reader’s feeble imagination. This is no way to write a history.

The theme of The Accidental City is that New Orleans was an unlikely outcome of conflicting forces and outsized personalities. Very close readings of politically expedient marriages and French court intrigues are this history’s strength. Never was there a more obvious illustration that inner workings at power centers can have profound effects on far flung places like New Orleans, which was at the epicenter of European struggle for dominance among Spaniards, French, and English. The Accidental City is also good at tracing the effect of San Domingo and the slave rebellion of Toussaint L’Ouverture on the whole Caribbean trade.

All in all, I would deem it a solid work marred by a pompous tone and the occasional imposition of a form of cultural analysis decidedly academic, politically correct, and anachronistic.


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The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans
Author: Lawrence N. Powell
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published In: Cambridge, Massachusetts / London, England
Date: 2012
Pgs: 422

REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
New Orleans stands at the confluence of the American Heartland at the drain of the watershed of the entire Midwest and Great Plains region. The city shouldn’t exist...or it should be somewhere other than where it’s at. Prone to flooding, below sea level, battered by hurricanes, and rising from a swamp; all while caught between France, England, Spain, an America aborning, the Caribbean, South America, and the influx of African slaves. This is the story of the Crescent City from her founding as a French village town, to an African market town, to a Spanish fortress, and Anglo-American trade center. Land schemes, financial bubbles, the rise and fall of colonial power brokers, rogues, and smugglers.

Genre:

Culture
Government
History
Non-fiction
Reference and languages
Science and nature
Sociology
Travel guides

Why this book:
It’s New Orleans. I love Nawlins.
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Favorite Character:
The city itself is the best character in its story. Though it doesn’t really “become” New Orleans in the current sense until much after its founding.

Least Favorite Character:
Those behind the Revolt of 1768.

The Feel:
Scholarly and dry. The early chapters don’t capture New Orleans in these pages. They tell us the story, give us the names and dates, but there’s no spice or pepper under the words through the Revolt of 1768.

Favorite Scene:
An English sea captain in command of a 10-gun corvette with French Huguenot settlers loyal to the British crown is turned back on a bluff at the English Turn. Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, the Sieur de Bienville did this telling the Englishman that the river he was on wasn’t the Mississippi and that this land had all been claimed by France, though neither were particularly true at that moment.

Pacing:
The pacing is slow.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Jumps around a bit in time.

Hmm Moments:
The failure of the Revolt of 1768 is an example of everything that was wrong with spoiled aristocracy interested in protecting its own power at the expense of everyone else. They claimed more power and more power that was never given to them and finally the crowns of France and Spain had had enough. These were not the Revolutionaries who would bring France to another way of thinking. These were familial linked colonials who were more interested in protecting their power than in the cause liberty.
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Last Page Sound:
It was interesting

Knee Jerk Reaction:
it’s alright

Disposition of Book:
Library book

Dewey Decimal System:
976.355 POW

Would recommend to:
genre fans
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