Preview: A top historian offers a new history of Paris’s Belle Époque, the luminous age of the Eiffel Tower and the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, but also of social unrest and violent clashes over what it meant to be French
From the wrought ironwork of the Eiffel Tower to the flourishing art nouveau movement, the Belle Époque is remembered as a golden age for Parisian culture. Beneath the veneer of elegance, however, fin de siècle Paris was a city at war with itself.
In City of Light, City of Shadows, Mike Rapport uncovers a Paris riven by social anxieties and plagued by overlapping epidemics of poverty, political extremism, and anti-Semitism. As the Sacré-Cœur and Eiffel Tower rose into the skies, redefining architecture and the Paris skyline, Paris’s slums were plagued by disease and gang violence. The era, now remembered as a high point of French art and culture, was also an age of intense political violence, including anarchist bombings, organized right-wing mobs, and assassinations.
Weaving together these stories of splendor and suffering with the fabric of the city itself, the book offers a brilliant account of Paris’s Belle Époque—revealing the darkness that suffused the City of Light.
Review
The Belle Epoque was a fascinating time in history and Mike Rapport, a professor of history at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society brings all of his knowledge and research expertise to the story of the evolution of the French capital. And it’s fascinating.
The book brings the Paris of the 19th century to life and explains how it was impacted by devastating events. It’s not just about the Eiffel Tower, artists drinking absinthe, the can can and cabaret, flamboyant art nouveau style and the upgrading of Paris architecture. This was a time of political unrest, great poverty and enormous change. The author digs deep into the annals of history and tells of the life behind the façade, of the people who lived there, and for most of whom life was not so “belle”. And he reveals in detail the buildings that were erected including the basilica of Sacré Coeur, the new-to-the-world department stores and the metro.
Told in a way that holds your attention despite the fact that this is a complicated historic period, you can clearly understand how some of what happened many decades ago continues to impact Paris, and the word, today.
A really engaging and in depth read, it’s beautifully written, full of detail and facts, and for those who want to understand Paris better – a must read.
Available on Amazon and at all good book stores.
