By weaving in a single narrative the city’s siting, geography, spatial qualities, culture, economy, society, and tragedy, it affords us an exceptional insight into the city as it is today, and remains a passionate journey through one of our nation’s most fascinating places. –from Karen Kingsley’s foreword.

In his now classic work of historical geography, originally published in 1976, Lewis traces the rise and expansion of New Orleans through four major historical periods. Newly reissued by the University of Virginia Press, this second edition offers a revised and greatly expanded look at this unique community on the Mississippi Delta? a fearsome place, difficult enough for building houses, lunacy for wharves and skyscrapers ?with a new foreword that situates Lewis’s work post-Katrina, and argues that it remains as insightful and compelling today as it was before the hurricane made landfall in August 2005.