Paris: The Biography of a City (2004)

(retrieved from Amazon Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:57:16 -0500)

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"In this new history, Colin Jones gives a sense of the city of Paris as it was lived in, experienced and imagined over the two thousand years of its history. With an eye for the revealing, startling and occasionally horrible detail, he takes the reader from Roman Paris to the present day, re-creating the highs and lows of the history of the city and its inhabitants. All the great Parises are here: the formidable medieval centre of learning; the ferocious cockpit of the Hundred Years War and the Wars of Religion; the heart of European culture, Enlightenment and fashion; the epicentre of Revolution, Terror and Napoleonic ambition; the dazzling, fevered nineteenth-century city of Balzac, Manet, Baudelaire and Zola; the imperial capital stricken by two world wars and Nazi occupation; the prosperous contemporary capital, reeling beneath the weight of its historical past; and the city's future at the heart of Europe." "It will be enjoyed not only by lovers of history but by habitual Paris obsessives, by first-time visitors, and even by those who know the city only by distant repute."--BOOK JACKET.… (more)

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