Katrina: After The Flood

"Investigative reporters have long followed this rule from the 1976 film All The President’s Men: “Follow the money.” Gary Rivlin applies that dictum to power, politics and planning in New Orleans before and after its infamous 2005 deluge. His book focuses on the central role of black-owned Liberty Bank in the redevelopment of neighborhoods inhabited largely by African-American professionals. At the same time, Rivlin offers a strong, infuriating argument that Katrina was a catastrophe decades in the making, abetted by the powers that be on the local, state and national level. The narrative includes heroes, too: Liberty Chief Executive Alden McDonald, the publishers of the monthly New Orleans Tribune, and the endearingly bourgeois, resourceful and indomitable Wall sisters of New Orleans East."