Despite all that has been done in nineteenth- century southern history during the past twenty years, important areas remain virtually untilled and await cultivation. Facing diminishing returns on their labor, many scholars stubbornly continue to be largely occupied and to a degree obsessed with studies in politics, race relations, and the Civil War, thus overlooking fertile topics in business and economic history as well as the history of science and technology-vistas of the past that hold enormous promise for enhancing our historical understanding. One such new departure is Elliott Ashkenazi's book, which focuses on Louisiana's Jewish business community and its practices. Although relatively small in number, Jewish business leaders had unique and significant roles and functions in Louisiana and elsewhere in the South and did much to sustain regional economic growth both before and after the Civil War.