Hurricanes have been a constant in the history of New Orleans. Since before its settlement as a French colony in the eighteenth century, the land entwined between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River has been lashed by powerful Gulf storms. Time and again, these hurricanes have wrought immeasurable loss and devastation, spurring reinvention and ingenuity on the part of inhabitants. Changes in the Air offers a rich and thoroughly researched history of how hurricanes have shaped and reshaped New Orleans from the colonial era to the present day, focusing on how its residents have adapted to a uniquely unpredictable and destructive environment across more than three centuries.

Eleonora Rohland holds a doctorate from the Ruhr-University Bochum. She is full Professor at Bielefeld University and the author of Entangled History and the Environment? Socio-Environmental Transformations in the Caribbean, 1492-1800 (WVT/ University of New Orleans Press, 2021) and of Sharing the Risk: Fire, Climate, and Disaster--Swiss Re 1864-1906 (Crucible Books, 2011).