Collections of essays, even those organized around a common general theme, do not always cohere. That, emphatically, is not the case with respect to the essays in Transforming New Orleans and Its Environs: Centuries of Change, which originated in a 1998 conference on the impact of human settlement and activity on the Lower Mississippi Valley. The volume's 12 essays and the accompanying introduction by the editor, Craig Colten, together make an integrated and valuable contribution to the fields of environmental history, economic history, and historical geography.