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Louisiana: A History
Covering the lively, even raucous, history of Louisiana from before First Contact through the Elections of 2012, this sixth edition of the classic Louisiana history survey provides an engaging and comprehensive narrative of what is arguably America’s most colorful state.
Paperback
First published June 1, 1984
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91 people want to read
About the author
Bennett H. Wall
8 booksBennett H. Wall was professor of history at the University of Georgia at Athens and secretary of the Southern Historical Association. Before his appointment at the University of Georgia he was a professor of history at the University of Kentucky for twenty years and at Tulane University for sixteen years, plus numerous short term appointments at various universities.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 7, 2023
Did I imagine myself reading a college textbook cover to cover? No chance. This is the result of a Chat GPT answer to my question on which books I should read for an understanding of Louisiana, my new home state. Maybe I’ll sell my soul to the artificial intelligence doomsday monster after it recommended such a great resource! 😄
From Iberville and Bienville traversing the undeveloped land to Edwin Edwards serving prison time, this goes through everything one needs to know about the Pelican state. I, of course, enjoyed the 20th century political history, including the Longs and Jimmie Davis. The modern history was newer to me, so that was a big takeaway. Katrina and the BP oil spill are things I’ve known about, but displayed in a broader context helps me as I now try to expand my knowledge on the state. Best textbook I’ve ever read!
From Iberville and Bienville traversing the undeveloped land to Edwin Edwards serving prison time, this goes through everything one needs to know about the Pelican state. I, of course, enjoyed the 20th century political history, including the Longs and Jimmie Davis. The modern history was newer to me, so that was a big takeaway. Katrina and the BP oil spill are things I’ve known about, but displayed in a broader context helps me as I now try to expand my knowledge on the state. Best textbook I’ve ever read!
February 11, 2024
I always start a history book with high hopes despite the inviolable truth that one should set expectations to their lowest level so as to avoid being disappointed. True to form, “Louisiana A History” does not fail to disappoint.
On the positive side, the editor’s Introduction was very good and raised my expectations tremendously, as did Part 1 covering the pre-historic to the end of the colonial period (about 1803.) “Placage” in particular is a fascinating practice I’d not encountered before, along with quadroon balls, and I wonder about modern revivals of these venerable traditions. In any case, I would suggest that more extensive footnotes (to every paragraph, for example) would be a significant improvement.
However, the rest of the text (Parts 2,3,&4), with a few exceptions, utterly dashed my hopes.
If I were to boil down most of my criticisms, I would draw attention to the sloppy and lazy editorial “oversight”. Two photographic examples: Pages 370 and 422 show the exact same photographs (an offshore oil rig), yet the photo captions are quite different and one of them clearly wrong. Similarly, p. 242 shows a “one-room schoolhouse” (presumably 1930s) which looks suspiciously like the McMansion my new neighbor just built across the street from me. Any idiot can see it’s not what the caption says it is.
These kinds of easy-to-spot and easy-to-fix errors really bother me, suggesting as they do that buried and not-so-easy-to-spot errors (or even merely missed opportunities) abound throughout the text, as they in fact do.
One of my continuing criticisms of state history textbooks is the authors’ apparently willful ignorance of how capitalism works, of money and banking generally, of the role of government spending and taxes, the misuse of statistics, among other failings, and this textbook follows that same pattern. The authors’ biases about various historical controversies are rarely hard to discern, which, to me, does not make for good history. Is there any New Deal program that the authors don’t like? Is there any tax increase or government spending increase that they don’t approve of (unless because it’s insufficient in their opinions). Are they aware of the arguments against the “New Deal”—many validated by subsequent historical research and analysis—and how some of those programs, including actions taken by the Federal Reserve, prolonged the Depression?
If not, they have no business writing “history.”
There are a few points in the text when one gets glimpses of suggestions that the authors are vaguely aware of some anomalies. My favorite may be on p.471, when the author points out that Louisiana had a budget larger than that of Pennsylvania with less than half the population! Yet in the next sentence, you get the impression that Bobby Jindal’s “severe budget cuts” are almost a crime against humanity! And in the Department of Missed Opportunities, where is the analysis of such tantalizing topics as: how much employment in the state is for government at all levels (versus, say, industry or agriculture) and how has that changed over time? What is the breakdown of government revenues, and more importantly, expenditures, per capita, and how has that changed? How many people does the state employ at what cost and how has that grown? Do LA taxpayers pay more to the Federal government than they get back in spending? Should they? What is the overall tax burden and who pays it? How does that compare to other states? And for whatever pay raises Louisiana teachers have gotten, has there been ANY improvement in student outcomes? (Follow-up question: Which politicians get the most financial support from teachers’ and other unions?)
Here’s my favorite Missed Opportunity : P448, the first two paragraphs under “Social, Cultural, and Economic Trends, 1995-2001” recount at some length many of the ways in which LA is still falling behind the rest of the South. I wrote in the margin (sarcasm intended), “Wonder why?” Happily, the next paragraph provides the answer. “Kentwood native Britney Spears became one of the nation’s leading rock singers.”
I never thought much of her music either…
And, yes, I blame the editor.
On the positive side, the editor’s Introduction was very good and raised my expectations tremendously, as did Part 1 covering the pre-historic to the end of the colonial period (about 1803.) “Placage” in particular is a fascinating practice I’d not encountered before, along with quadroon balls, and I wonder about modern revivals of these venerable traditions. In any case, I would suggest that more extensive footnotes (to every paragraph, for example) would be a significant improvement.
However, the rest of the text (Parts 2,3,&4), with a few exceptions, utterly dashed my hopes.
If I were to boil down most of my criticisms, I would draw attention to the sloppy and lazy editorial “oversight”. Two photographic examples: Pages 370 and 422 show the exact same photographs (an offshore oil rig), yet the photo captions are quite different and one of them clearly wrong. Similarly, p. 242 shows a “one-room schoolhouse” (presumably 1930s) which looks suspiciously like the McMansion my new neighbor just built across the street from me. Any idiot can see it’s not what the caption says it is.
These kinds of easy-to-spot and easy-to-fix errors really bother me, suggesting as they do that buried and not-so-easy-to-spot errors (or even merely missed opportunities) abound throughout the text, as they in fact do.
One of my continuing criticisms of state history textbooks is the authors’ apparently willful ignorance of how capitalism works, of money and banking generally, of the role of government spending and taxes, the misuse of statistics, among other failings, and this textbook follows that same pattern. The authors’ biases about various historical controversies are rarely hard to discern, which, to me, does not make for good history. Is there any New Deal program that the authors don’t like? Is there any tax increase or government spending increase that they don’t approve of (unless because it’s insufficient in their opinions). Are they aware of the arguments against the “New Deal”—many validated by subsequent historical research and analysis—and how some of those programs, including actions taken by the Federal Reserve, prolonged the Depression?
If not, they have no business writing “history.”
There are a few points in the text when one gets glimpses of suggestions that the authors are vaguely aware of some anomalies. My favorite may be on p.471, when the author points out that Louisiana had a budget larger than that of Pennsylvania with less than half the population! Yet in the next sentence, you get the impression that Bobby Jindal’s “severe budget cuts” are almost a crime against humanity! And in the Department of Missed Opportunities, where is the analysis of such tantalizing topics as: how much employment in the state is for government at all levels (versus, say, industry or agriculture) and how has that changed over time? What is the breakdown of government revenues, and more importantly, expenditures, per capita, and how has that changed? How many people does the state employ at what cost and how has that grown? Do LA taxpayers pay more to the Federal government than they get back in spending? Should they? What is the overall tax burden and who pays it? How does that compare to other states? And for whatever pay raises Louisiana teachers have gotten, has there been ANY improvement in student outcomes? (Follow-up question: Which politicians get the most financial support from teachers’ and other unions?)
Here’s my favorite Missed Opportunity : P448, the first two paragraphs under “Social, Cultural, and Economic Trends, 1995-2001” recount at some length many of the ways in which LA is still falling behind the rest of the South. I wrote in the margin (sarcasm intended), “Wonder why?” Happily, the next paragraph provides the answer. “Kentwood native Britney Spears became one of the nation’s leading rock singers.”
I never thought much of her music either…
And, yes, I blame the editor.
April 22, 2025
This non-fiction book is indeed a very comprehensive history of the State of Louisiana, from the pre-Native American peoples, to being a French colony, then a Spanish colony, briefly again a French colony before becoming the Louisiana Territory of the United States (which took in most of the current state of Louisiana, while stretching west and north to the current state of Montana, then the State of Louisiana in 1812, with additional land granted by the Adams–Onís of 1819 (which set the southwest border of the state). This book was published in 2008, so it does cover Hurricane Katrina, but not the Deepwater Horizon Rig Explosion of 2010. I very much enjoyed reading this book; I have lived in the State of Louisiana since 1973, and my husband’s family on both sides have been in the state since the early 1800’s.
The book is divided into four parts. Part One takes the story from the native peoples (first the Mound-Builders, then the Native Americans) to when Louisiana was purchased by the United States in 1803; during most of that time, there was no representational government in the state. Part Two takes us through the Territorial Period, then becoming a State of the United States, then the politics, life, and labor of Antebellum Louisiana. The last chapter deals with the Civil War and the Reconstruction period. Part Three goes from 1877 (Jim Crow policies, and the enrichment of the rich at the expense of the poor of all races) through the career of Huey Long (1924 – 1935). Part Four begins in 1936, and covers the Second World War, the career of Edwin Edwards, and ends with Contemporary Louisiana (1987 through 2007). Appendix I covers the rulers / governors of Louisiana (it should be noted that many contemporary governors thought of themselves as rulers). Appendix II gives us A Selective Chronology of Louisiana History, from the discovery of the Mississippi River by De Soto in 1541 to Congressman William Jefferson being indicted on numerous federal charges of corruption in 2007. And Appendix III gives the Population of Louisiana, first from 1721 through 1860 (listing Whites, Slaves, Free People of Color, and Totals), then from 1870 through 2000 (Whites, African Americans, and Totals).
Despite this book having been published some seventeen years ago, I found it to be a great resource, and it adequately explains how Louisiana is now the in the State that it finds itself.
The book is divided into four parts. Part One takes the story from the native peoples (first the Mound-Builders, then the Native Americans) to when Louisiana was purchased by the United States in 1803; during most of that time, there was no representational government in the state. Part Two takes us through the Territorial Period, then becoming a State of the United States, then the politics, life, and labor of Antebellum Louisiana. The last chapter deals with the Civil War and the Reconstruction period. Part Three goes from 1877 (Jim Crow policies, and the enrichment of the rich at the expense of the poor of all races) through the career of Huey Long (1924 – 1935). Part Four begins in 1936, and covers the Second World War, the career of Edwin Edwards, and ends with Contemporary Louisiana (1987 through 2007). Appendix I covers the rulers / governors of Louisiana (it should be noted that many contemporary governors thought of themselves as rulers). Appendix II gives us A Selective Chronology of Louisiana History, from the discovery of the Mississippi River by De Soto in 1541 to Congressman William Jefferson being indicted on numerous federal charges of corruption in 2007. And Appendix III gives the Population of Louisiana, first from 1721 through 1860 (listing Whites, Slaves, Free People of Color, and Totals), then from 1870 through 2000 (Whites, African Americans, and Totals).
Despite this book having been published some seventeen years ago, I found it to be a great resource, and it adequately explains how Louisiana is now the in the State that it finds itself.
June 10, 2017
You have to really want it.
December 2, 2023
Project Read-a-History-of-Every-State-in-Order-of-Statehood #18
February 10, 2024
Well written comprehensive history of Louisiana.
October 17, 2018
I read the edition written by Light Townsend Cummins, Judith Kelleher Schafer, Edward F. Haas, and Michael L. Kurtz (and 𝘯𝘰𝘵 edited by Bennett H. Wall).
It does what it sets out to do, but not in any unique or interesting way. Cummins and Schafer’s sections were pretty dry, Haas and Kurtz’s were more interesting. Themes that stood out to me include government neglect, corruption, apathy, and an abusive and vampiric ruling class, which frequently made for depressing reading.
I firmly disagree with the assertion in the introduction that Louisiana history is representative of the experiences of other states, or of America in general. That is not to say comparisons can't be made, merely that when Louisiana is concerned such comparisons should be made with care, because, in many ways, Louisiana is clearly in a class of her own.
Since this book does its job, but is not very entertaining or possess much insight. Three stars.
It does what it sets out to do, but not in any unique or interesting way. Cummins and Schafer’s sections were pretty dry, Haas and Kurtz’s were more interesting. Themes that stood out to me include government neglect, corruption, apathy, and an abusive and vampiric ruling class, which frequently made for depressing reading.
I firmly disagree with the assertion in the introduction that Louisiana history is representative of the experiences of other states, or of America in general. That is not to say comparisons can't be made, merely that when Louisiana is concerned such comparisons should be made with care, because, in many ways, Louisiana is clearly in a class of her own.
Since this book does its job, but is not very entertaining or possess much insight. Three stars.
April 6, 2008
This is the definitive text on the history of Louisiana. While far from exhaustive, it isn't meant to be. As a survey text, it is outstanding and gives a good feel for how the politics of the area have helped shape the state and its culture. Louisiana has a rich and varied history that has helped to make it an area that is perhaps more different from the rest of the nation than any other state. How many other states have a population of people who speak a foreign language, yet are native to the area? While French-speaking Cajuns are certainly a minority, they are indicative of all the unique characteristics of the state.
June 7, 2013
This book really held my interest however the reasons it held my interest don't speak all that highly of Louisiana. Politics filled with corruption, racism and incompetence throughout their history make for interesting reading but not much to be proud of. In the last few years it appears that they have made major inroads into reducing the racism, here's hoping they can make progress on the other two as well...
June 29, 2007
The best thing about this book are the photographs. It's a good beginner read to Louisiana history, but goes into very little detail about any events. Read it to find out what else you want to read or what historical figures you find interesting.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews