EBOOK
Development Drowned and Reborn
The Blues and Bourbon Restorations in Post-Katrina New Orleans
Clyde WoodsSeries: Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation5
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About
Development Drowned and Reborn is a "Blues geography" of New Orleans, one that compels readers to return to the history of the Black freedom struggle there to reckon with its unfinished business. Reading contemporary policies of abandonment against the grain, Clyde Woods explores how Hurricane Katrina brought long-standing structures of domination into view. In so doing, Woods delineates the roots of neoliberalism in the region and a history of resistance.
Written in dialogue with social movements, this book offers tools for comprehending the racist dynamics of U.S. culture and economy. Following his landmark study, Development Arrested, Woods turns to organic intellectuals, Blues musicians, and poor and working people to instruct readers in this future-oriented history of struggle. Through this unique optic, Woods delineates a history, methodology, and epistemology to grasp alternative visions of development.
Woods contributes to debates about the history and geography of neoliberalism. The book suggests that the prevailing focus on neoliberalism at national and global scales has led to a neglect of the regional scale. Specifically, it observes that theories of neoliberalism have tended to overlook New Orleans as an epicenter where racial, class, gender, and regional hierarchies have persisted for centuries. Through this Blues geography, Woods excavates the struggle for a new society.
Written in dialogue with social movements, this book offers tools for comprehending the racist dynamics of U.S. culture and economy. Following his landmark study, Development Arrested, Woods turns to organic intellectuals, Blues musicians, and poor and working people to instruct readers in this future-oriented history of struggle. Through this unique optic, Woods delineates a history, methodology, and epistemology to grasp alternative visions of development.
Woods contributes to debates about the history and geography of neoliberalism. The book suggests that the prevailing focus on neoliberalism at national and global scales has led to a neglect of the regional scale. Specifically, it observes that theories of neoliberalism have tended to overlook New Orleans as an epicenter where racial, class, gender, and regional hierarchies have persisted for centuries. Through this Blues geography, Woods excavates the struggle for a new society.
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Reviews
"In this beautifully complex study of New Orleans, edited by Laura Pulido and Jordan T. Camp, Clyde Woods rehistoricizes black and black diaspora geographies with precision. In Development Drowned and Reborn, Woods tracks a range of plantation bloc-logics and shows how they engender praxes of black life-inside and outside New Orleans, past and present-that cannot be contained by prevailing knowled
Katherine McKittrick, Gender Studies, Queen's University
"This is storytelling at its best. Strongly recommended."
Nikhil Pal Singh, Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University
"The book reflects monumental scholarship assembled by Woods. It is a page-turner and a fitting portrait of New Orleans - covering such topics as the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era, the rise of the Populists, the Garvey movement, and the origin of the Mardi Gras Indians. It is a cultural as well as political study, and should be part of the city's tricentennial celebration in 2018."
Derrick Morrison, Solidarity