Cities of the Imagination: New Orleans

This new title in Signal's 'Cities of the Imagination' series is the first major historical guide to New Orleans to be published following Hurricane Katrina and itself takes the form of a centrifugal geographical narrative: it spirals out from the old city of the French Quarter, then passes through 'America's first suburbs' before finally moving through the contemporary Downtown to the outlying Cajun country. . .she also highlights the city's juxtaposition of the profane (bars) and the sacred (the Ursuline convent). Underlining the hip nature of New Orleans in her preface, McKinney notes a derivation of the word 'hip' from the African Wolof verb hepi (to see), or hipi (to open one's eyes). Her book accordingly draws out the visionary quality of the city Constance Adler likened to the 'basement of the soul.' This emphasis on the town's spiritual remnants seems peculiarly appropriate post-Katrina.

 

Robert Bond, The Guardian

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