New Orleans is not only a city built of timber and brick, but a state of mind.
The city's unique character stems from the varied contributions of the peoples that have made up its population during its colorful and often turbulent past. Hurricanes, floods and epidemics have taken their toll, but New Orleans has lived on to tell the tale.
In many ways it continues to be as it was a century ago and is a living example of the French expression "The more things change, the more they are the same."
Changes come, as come they must, but unlike other American cities, New Orleans continues to be itself, a graceful, tolerant and pleasure-loving city.
About the Author:
Born in Paris on October 11 1941, Bernard Hermann started his career as photojournalist for a French newspaper. Later, as a photographer for the Gamma Agency, he travelled to Outer Mongolia, the Amazon and the South Pacific where he arrived in 1970 on assignment aboard the Pen Duick IV racing yacht. In Tahiti he collaborated assiduously with the newly born Editions du Pacifique, producing a number of travel books such as Guadeloupe, Martinique, Haiti, New Caledonia, New Hebrides and Tahiti and Its Islands. Bernard Hermann is also the photographer of several pictorial albums: San Francisco, Rio, New York, and Paris.
A New Orleans journalist for more than 50 years, Charles L. "Pie" Dufour wrote a daily editorial page column for the States-Item for 30 years, until his retirement in 1979. He has been an instructor of history at Tulane University, his alma mater, which in 1978 conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. Dufour is the author of eight books, co-author of a ninth and has edited two other works. His main fields have been the American Civil War -- The Night the War Was Lost, Nine Men in Gray, and Gentle Tiger -- the Mexican War -- A Compact History of the Mexican War -- and New Orleans and Louisiana history -- New Orleans, the Crescent City and Ten Flags in the Wind. The latter, the story of Louisiana, is in Harper & Row's Regions of America Series.
