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(More customer reviews)I admit to being fascinated by pictorial histories of cities. I enjoy being able to stand on a street corner, or on the observation deck of a tall building, with such a book in hand and "see" into the past. All cities are formed by their geography and this is perhaps truer for New Orleans than most. Campanella, an environmental analyst and historical geographer, and the author of _New Orleans Then and Now,_ begins with the problematic founding of the city (the malarial swampland between the river and the lake wasn't anyone's first choice). As the city expanded, land reclamation became necessary, but this was complicated by the high water table and the need for a complex drainage system. Its geography also formed the city's culture, its districts, neighborhoods, nodes, street patterns, and shifting industrial center. But many readers may be less interested in the civil engineering case studies and more attentive to this coffee-table volume's glossy photographs, many of them aerial. And most residents of the Crescent City will agree with his description of St. Charles Avenue as the city's "spinal cord" and perhaps be surprised to learn that many of the radiating streets of their city are the exact descendants of footpaths traced on early maps.
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New Orleans seems to occupy a special geography as unique as its spicy cuisine or its spirited jazz music.
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