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.

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.

Assessing the damage left by Hurricane Katrina in social, cultural, and physical terms, the essays in this volume suggest that the nation's long and historic engagement with the Gulf Coast has entered a new era.

While many of the essays analyze Katrina in terms of the relatively recent past, others explore how reaction to the hurricane's aftermath is rooted in the region's history. Uniquely combining humanities and social sciences research, the contributors reevaluate the political, social, and economic dynamics that existed before this "natural" disaster and the subsequent responses and actions, or lack thereof.

Investigations of public policies, organizations, social movements, and neoliberalism range from a traditional policy case study of the often-neglected Alabama and Mississippi experience to an analysis of urban social movements in New Orleans to a broad critique of local policy that has global implications. Innovative young scholars provide essays on music, literature, tourism, and gender. Interviews with key community leaders and historic poets round out the volume.

The many social, political, racial, economic, and personal disasters that followed Katrina produced intellectual dilemmas. How could this happen in the wealthiest nation in the world? How could the U.S. government so callously abandon its citizens when they so desperately needed federal aid? Why was the most powerful military in the world unable or unwilling to act? Readers will find in this collection compelling answers to these, and other, complicated questions.

From Thomas Jefferson to George W Bush - this title presents the history of the Mississippi Delta, fully updated with a new chapter on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. How could the Mississippi Delta, one of the world's most prolific cultural centres, be demolished by a predictable natural disaster? This revised edition of Clyde Woods' classic book examines disaster relief and reconstruction conflicts after Hurricane Katrina. Development Arrested also traces the decline and resurrection of plantation ideology in national public policy discourse from Thomas Jefferson to George W Bush, documenting the unceasing attacks on the gains of the Civil Rights Movement and how, despite having suffered countless defeats at the hands of the planter regime, African Americans in the Delta region have continued to push forward their agenda for social, economic and cultural justice. Woods examines the role of the blues in sustaining their efforts, surveying a musical tradition - including jazz, rock and roll, soul and hip-hop - that has embraced a radical vision of social change.