A Company Man: The Remarkable French-Atlantic Voyage of a Clerk for the Company of the Indies by Marc-Antoine Caillot

Recently rediscovered and never before published, this buoyant memoir recounts a young man's 1729 voyage from Paris to the New World. An incorrigible rake--if not an outright rogue--Marc-Antoine Caillot documents a string of pranks, parties, and romantic escapades, and he speaks with immediacy across the centuries, illuminating racial and ethnic politics, environmental concerns, and the birth of New Orleans s distinctive cultural mélange. Enlivened by the author's own exquisite illustrations, A Company Man provides an intimate look at the early history of one of America s most storied cities, placing it and the fledgling colony it anchored within the nexus of the French Atlantic empire.