Shotgun houses...vibrant street scenes...grand villas and mansions...colorful facades...they're all part of a historically rich, interconnected Creole world. New Orleans is often hailed for its distinctive Creole heritage—evident in its food, architecture, and people—but it is far from alone. Its creoleness may be unique to the United States, but New Orleans is part of an entire family of Latin Caribbean cities with similar colonial histories. Founded as New World outposts of Old World empires, these cities forged new identities from European, West African, and indigenous influences—by turns inspired by, in defiance of, and adapted from all of them.
In Creole World, author and photographer Richard Sexton explores the architectural and urban similarities among these cultural cousins, from Haiti, Colombia, Argentina, Cuba, Bolivia, and Ecuador back home to New Orleans.
Setting the stage for the book's two hundred color photographs are essays by Creole-architecture scholar Jay D. Edwards and photography historian John H. Lawrence. Together, they take readers on a fascinating journey across time and place, through the ever-changing Creole world.