Customer Reviews

Louisiana: A History (States and the Nation)

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If I was to grade this book, I would have probably given it a C-. I felt it had the necessary history items needed to get an understanding of the history of the state, however I feel for whatever reason the material wasn't presented in as clear and precise manner as I feel it should have been. I often had to go back and review the material from just a few days before. After reading it I felt the author wasn't as clear and precise he should have been on certain important key facts. For example, the author talked about during the period of the transition between France and Spain, and references the 31st parallel being a key fact, but he did not provide any maps, any description where the 31st parallel was. So his point was moot because I could not visualize. Sure I can go to the internet to determine where the 31st parallel is, but I shouldn't have to do that.

I also wished the author would have highlighted bullet points of important periods with titles or headers so this book could be used as a reference book, but it didn't. For example if the author was writing about Reconstruction, it would have been nice for him to separate the chapter into 3 or 4 main points that we should take out of it, but he doesn't do that. Therefore three or six months down the road, this book would not be a good book of reference.

I am satisfied with the book, but think the book could use some improvements. I would probably look elsewhere for a solid Louisiana history book. Sorry Mr. Taylor.

A book of about 180 pages long. It is a little too sketchy and dry -and no mention of the Flood of 1927 or of Louis Armstrong is made!- but the worst is the tone of arrogant condescending toward his historical characters. From his comfortable pulpit of 20th century observation the scholar judges the ignorance of rural people, the greed of the rich, and the meanness of almost everybody. As a first aid of Louisiana history this book may do. Evidently in such a short book the author has to hand pick his favorite stories to make his own personal summary of Lousiana history. And one gets the picture, alright. But I disliked the impression made by sentences like: "Bourbon politicians convinced them [Louisiana farmers] that a vote agasint the nominee of the Democratic convention was a vote for a return to Negro rule ... but farmers, like other people, acted upon their believes, not upon the basis of historical fact." Of course, the poor fellows did not have Mr Joe Taylor to illuminate them; he would have told them: "Don't vote as you believe, vote upon the basis of historical fact!"

And how about this quote from the epilogue: "The Pentecostal and other newer protestant sects have accepted the technology of the new age ... their theology, however, remains ardently fundamentalist. The Southern Baptist Church ... also has prospered and has been relatively unaffected by modernist religious thought." Mr Joe Taylor not only knows about history and how people shoud vote at all times, he also is a theologian. We ignorants -farmers, and other people- should bow at the wisdom of men like this, so righteous, so caring. So arrogant.

This is not honest history; this is preaching. I don't refute the facts, I only say that a historian should be more professional (honest) and leave his prejudices behind, and show us so we can see today with the eyes of those who made history.

In late 1698, four ships sailed from France under the command of Pierre le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville.Aboard were some two hundred people destined to become the first settlers of a French post in the lower Mississippi River. Iberville landed first at Dauphin Island near modern Mobile, then moved further East to Ship Island. Sailing up to the great River Iberville visited with the bayou goula Indians on the west bank. Rene Robert cavalier Sieur de la Salle who were a wealthy important immigrant to Canada who heard of the voyage of Marqette and Joliet and comprehended the strategic significance of a fort at the mouth of Mississippi. During the winter of 1682, La Salle led an expedition of fifty-six persons, including ten indians women and three children down the Mississippi to its mouth.He reached salt water on April 6, placed a cross in the mud and claimed the Country for France. He gave the name of Louisiana, in honor of king Louis XIV. That's was the basis for France's claim to Louisiana,though the Spanish Explorer Hernando De Soto had discover the Mississippi and crossed it 140 years earlier. Louisiana was a French-Speaking Spanish colony when the nineteenth century began. Twelve years later Loisiana was one of the United States, successfully operating a system of goverment radically different from the autocracy tempered by ineffiency that had gone before.