Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas

Posted on 16 April 2019 by Rebecca Solnit

Like the bestselling Infinite City A San Francisco Atlas, this book is a brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, one that provides a vivid, complex look at the multi faceted nature of New Orleans, a city replete with contradictions More than twenty essays assemble a chorus of vibrant voices, including geographers, scholars of sugar and bananas, the city s remarkable musicians, prison activists, environmentalists, Arab and Native voices, and local experts, as well as the coauthors compelling contributions Featuring 22 full color two page spread maps, Unfathomable City plumbs the depths of this major tourist destination, pivotal scene of American history and culture and, most recently, site of monumental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill.The innovative maps precision and specificity shift our notions of the Mississippi, the Caribbean, Mardi Gras, jazz, soils and trees, generational roots, and many other subjects, and expand our ideas of how any city is imagined and experienced Together with the inspired texts, they show New Orleans as both an imperiled city by erosion, crime, corruption, and sea level rise and an ageless city that lives in music as a form of cultural resistance Compact, lively, and completely original, Unfathomable City takes readers on a tour that will forever change the way they think about place.Read an excerpt hereUnfathomable City A New Orleans Atlas by Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker by University of California PressListen to an interview with the authors here Free Download Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas by Rebecca Solnit For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr A varied bunch of essays, super interesting on the whole.I want to get to KNOW this citySolnit s book on San Francisco read like a love letter to a beloved While I don t know New Orleans well at allI suspect this book is also a love letter I made a long list of places she reference for my next visit when I continue my exploration of NOLA.I wrote an earlier review of this book I containmultitudes than you can shake a stick at and have now decided to update it since receiving the actual published book since I used the advanced reader copy for the previous review and now after readingof it in a different location than the last time and viewing all of the maps that weren t in the ARC, and all of this new stuff done on All Saints Day, no less Told you multitudes.I decided to do it without the previous cranky insertion I wrote an earlier review of this book I containmultitudes than you can shake a stick at and have now decided to update it since receiving the act...This book is a stunning work of mapping and nonfiction essays that each demonstrate a paradox of New Orleans the beauty of its culture and spirit vs its troubled political landscape There are maps that contrast maps that depict slavery with the prison system there t...A beautiful tribute to the complicated, wonderful city of New Orleans and especially its people This book is an atlas, but nothing like you used to find or maybe still do in a gas station convenience store Within, there are 20 beautiful and heartfelt essays on topics that are relevant to the city s past, present, and future Each essay is accompanied by an artistic and cartographically accurate map of the city, showing the im...A beautiful and really fun collection of 22 short essays and accompanying maps atlases illustrating the content of the essays about New Orleans This book is oversize and stunning, but comes with what I consider two major flaws 1 , and this is a biggy, because it is a paperback book, and the maps span 2 pages, it is really difficult to see what the maps contain in the middle toward the crease without breaking the spine In a book that is considered to be an atlas, and one where the maps are A beautiful and really fun collection of 22 short essays and accompanying maps atlases illustrating the content of the essays about New Orleans This book is oversize and stunning, but comes with what I consider two major flaws 1 , and this is a biggy, because it is a paperback book, and the maps span 2 pages, it is really difficult to see what the maps contain in the middle toward the crease without breaking the spine In a book that is considered to be an atlas, and one where the maps are obviously created with such care and attention to detail, this feels like a huge design flaw 2 , and this is really a backhanded compliment, some of these essays are way too short All 22 essays are the same length, about 4 pages, and for some of these subjects that is just the introduction Granted, some of these things you could write entire books about, and people probably have, but ...A strange, haunting and lovely book that combines essays about culture, politics and economics in post Katrina New Orleans with maps that illuminate and draw out their themes And vice versa, actually, since many cases the maps came first I ve got an irrational and unstoppable city crush on New Or...American history is a loose designation for this book, but it s full of it In another essay driven exploration of a major city we get to explore New Orleans, so multifaceted it s a gem But it s also a concrete lilypad a dangerous and endangered environment from years of trying to subdue the Miss R and the coastal weather issues, not to mention the impact of so many human...I ve been to nola probably 20 times in the past 20 years and this book is the first thing to capture the spirit It s well put together and draws some jaw dropping correlations that are a so damn and insightful it s frustrating Highly recomm...

English
16 April 2019

Rebecca Solnit