Customer Reviews

Building the Devil's Empire: French Colonial New Orleans

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In this splendid and groundbreaking history of colonial New Orleans, Shannon Dawdy demonstrates her powers as research and raconteur and captivates the reader with her talent for spinning out the human stories that made New Orleans in its infancy the place of infamy, chicanery, and romance that has so firmly lodged it in the minds of Americans and others. It is a wonderful read and one that makes me, a historical archaeologist like Dawdy though not, I fear, one of her caliber, stew in impatient anticipation of her forthcoming works on the archaeology of our beloved Crescent City.

For those that have read several previous books on 18th century New Orleans this

provides a little more information but not much more. What is especially disappointing, given the title, is that there is little data presented regarding the sexual lives of city residents in the French period. Given New Orleans's reputation as having always been free-spirited in this regard this is a major gap. Totally missing is any data on the extent to which same gender relationships were tolerated despite French sodomy laws prior to the Revolution of 1789. Also the details on the streets, the houses, vegetation of the city is limited.