After the Storm: Black Intellectuals Explore the Meaning of Hurricane Katrina

These 10 original, judiciously edited essays—most of them by lawyers—explore the political and social response to Hurricane Katrina. The two opening pieces look back to the historical development of ghetto neighborhoods. Another complementary pair addresses the centrality of race in Louisiana politics and the commonalities of black and white suffering. Among the best are Clement Alexander Price's "Historicizing Katrina," a groundbreaking review of the "close link between natural disaster and black migrations in American history," and Cheryl I. Harris and Devon W. Carbado's "Loot or Find: Fact or Frame?" an eye-opening riff on the way the frame of race filters our perception of fact. Others consider the treatment of the victims as criminal acts, delve into the dispersal of the population and examine the media response. All are succinct and fresh, bound by the common question of whether there will be a new New Orleans, how it will be made and how much of the old New Orleans can be resuscitated. (Sept.)