City of Light, City of Shadows

Belle Epoque Paris: Haussmann''s airy boulevards, well-trimmed parks and markets. The capital of the 19th century. The glittering, glamorous age that would be lost in the industrialised human butchery of the First World War. When we think of this era, we see it so positively, as sunshine in the darkness, a great period of cultural vibrancy. But at the time people spoke more worriedly about ''Fin de Siecle'' - the turn of the century announcing a leap into an unknown future, where the forces unleashed during the 19th century, the unpredictable application of new technologies, the furnaces of industrialisation, the rise of mass politics, the yawning inequalities of wealth and poverty, the expansion of the cities and more - might bear poisonous fruit. Focusing on the great buildings of the time - many such as the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur still iconic landmarks of the city - and on the influential characters that roamed the city streets, from Emile Zola and Suzanne Valadon (Renoir''s model) to Marcel Proust and Marguerite Durand, The Lantern brings to life the ''modern'' city like never before. Impeccably researched and beautifully written, this exceptional work of narrative history by one of the foremost scholars of the period is a prize-winner in the marking - a journey through the city of Paris in its heyday that will live with readers long after the last page has been turned.

Préface
For readers of Graham Robb and Simon Schama, this elegantly written, vivid chronicle of Paris during the Belle Epoque brings to life some of best-known characters and buildings of the era, and shows how closely the fears and anxieties of the early 19th century mirror our own today

Auteur

Mike Rapport

Texte du rabat

Paris in the Belle Époque is remembered as a golden age of cultural flourishing and political progress. The time between the revolutionary 1870s and the outbreak of war in 1914 saw the modern French capital take shape: by day Parisians could admire the rising Eiffel Tower and Sacré-Coeur Basilica, while at night they roamed the Bohemian world of the Moulin Rouge.

But as Mike Rapport reveals in this authoritative and beautifully written new history beneath its elegant veneer Paris was at war with itself. The Belle Époque was also an era of social and religious unrest, women's emancipation and violent clashes over what it meant to be French.

Paris pulsated with the pleasures and anxieties of modernity: blazing electric lights illuminating the night, the first cars speeding down the boulevards, as well as the first Métro trains and plane flights. At the same time reactionary forces reasserted themselves-mostly dramatically in the infamous Dreyfus affair.

Told through the eyes of the greatest personalities of the age-novelist Émile Zola, feminist activist Marguerite Durand, Vietnamese diplomat Nguy?n Tr?ng H?p and socialist politician Jean Jaurès-the book weaves together stories of splendour and suffering, delight and agony, offering a brilliant account of the shadows cast across the City of Light.

Résumé

Belle Epoque Paris: Haussmann's airy boulevards, well-trimmed parks and markets. The capital of the 19th century. The glittering, glamorous age that would be lost in the industrialised human butchery of the First World War. When we think of this era, we see it so positively, as sunshine in the darkness, a great period of cultural vibrancy.
But at the time people spoke more worriedly about 'Fin de Siecle' - the turn of the century announcing a leap into an unknown future, where the forces unleashed during the 19th century, the unpredictable application of new technologies, the furnaces of industrialisation, the rise of mass politics, the yawning inequalities of wealth and poverty, the expansion of the cities and more - might bear poisonous fruit.
Focusing on the great buildings of the time - many such as the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur still iconic landmarks of the city - and on the influential characters that roamed the city streets, from Emile Zola and Suzanne Valadon (Renoir's model) to Marcel Proust and Marguerite Durand, The Lantern brings to life the 'modern' city like never before.
Impeccably researched and beautifully written, this exceptional work of narrative history by one of the foremost scholars of the period is a prize-winner in the marking - a journey through the city of Paris in its heyday that will live with readers long after the last page has been turned.