Building the Land of Dreams: New Orleans and the Transformation of Early America

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The history of New Orleans at the turn of the nineteenth century In 1795, New Orleans was a sleepy outpost at the edge of Spain's American empire. By the 1820s, it was teeming with life, its levees packed with cotton and sugar. New Orleans had become the unquestioned urban capital of the antebellum South. Looking at this remarkable period filled

Reviews

"Winner of the 2015 Kemper and Leila Williams Prize in Louisiana History, Historic New Orleans Collection and the Louisiana Historical Association"
"Multicultural New Orleans maintains a mystique that stems from its unique development under governments of France, Spain, and Thomas Jefferson's U.S., argues musician-turned-history teacher Faber in this remarkable and thorough history." * Publishers Weekly *
"This well-researched snapshot of a brief period of the city's lengthy history richly details personalities and events, offering a valuable perspective to history students and anyone who has experienced the Crescent City's vibrant ways of life." * Library Journal *
"Faber explains how exotic New Orleans became somewhat less exotic after the Louisiana Purchase. . . . The author also provides information about the powerful individuals who were part of the transition." * Choice *
"An original and complex analysis of New Orleans during that transformative period in its history and details the political and economic integration of the city into Jeffersonian America. . . . This book effectively presents an important, and hopefully provocative, historical, geographical, and political argument: the histories and geographies of New Orleans and the early United States are inseparable. Whatever their differences, compromises and common interests generally prevailed."---Case Watkins, Journal of Historical Geography
"Deeply researched, vibrant, and passionately honest. . . . Historians of early Louisiana will be debating Faber's book for years to come."---David E. Narrett, Journal of Southern History
"Faber's book retires much of the folklore embedded in New Orleans's historiography."---George Edward Milne, American Historical Review
"This book . . . joins a formidable scholarship on political re-imaginings following the Louisiana Purchase. . . . [Building the Land of Dreams] shows an intimate sensitivity to chronology, tracing the ways events communicated with each other on tight timelines. . . . Ultimately, Building the Land of Dreams highlights the ways New Orleans and the early American republic entered the antebellum period in tandem, informing one another on issues of slavery, expansionism, and national identity."---Kristin Condotta Lee, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
"In Building the Land of Dreams: New Orleans and the Transformation of Early America, Eberhard L. Faber has significantly improved our understanding of the complexity of early national Louisiana."---Michael K. Beauchamp, H-Net Reviews

Author Bio

Eberhard L. Faber teaches history and music industry studies at Loyola University, New Orleans. Previously, he spent twelve years leading the New York-based rock band God Street Wine. He blogs on New Orleans history and other topics at www.crescentcityconfidential.com.