Paris Babylon: The Story of the Paris Commune

by Rupert Christiansen

Overview

Between 1869 and 1875, Paris was known to the world as "the new Babylon." A city obsessed with sex and money and rules by the ailing tyrant Louis Napoleon and his ruthless wife Eugenie, Paris was a place of intensity, violence and volatility. Tracing Europe's most glittering capital as it tettered on the verge of the Franco-Prussian War and the horror that ensued, Christiansen evokes one of the most dramatic periods of modern history. photos.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140129809
Publisher:	Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Publication date:	06/28/1996
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	5.18(w) x 7.74(h) x 1.00(d)

Editorial Reviews

This engrossing history of the French capital during the 1870s by Somerset Maugham Prize-winner Christiansen (Romantic Affinities) begins by reprinting an 1869 travel guide to ``gay and beautiful Paris'' published just before the fall of Emperor Napoleon III during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Relying on a foundation of excellent research, and exercising great narrative skill, the author details Parisian political and social life before and after the war. A city attractive to tourists because of its visionary civic planning, rich culture and sensuality was brought to its knees by a Prussian siege that resulted in widespread starvation and death. Angered by financial hardships imposed by a monarchist assembly, elected after peace was restored, working-class Parisians formed a government in 1871; their ``Paris Commune'' rebelled against the ruling powers. Life during the following two-month civil war, which ended with the defeat of the commune and the execution of its leaders, is vividly described in this gripping social history. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

For this social history of the late Second Empire, Franco-Prussian War, and bloody beginnings of the Third Republic, the original (British) title, Tales of the New Babylon, Paris 1869-1875, is a better fit. Only one chapter concerns the commune itself, but the book consists of many vivid stories, from the lurid murder of a family to an account of making do with mouse meat for haute cuisine while under siege. Christiansen (Romantic Affinities: Portrait of an Age, 1780-1830, LJ 6/15/88) disavows original analysis and profundity here but rightly claims to use many unfamiliar sources in addition to relying heavily on the well-known Goncourt journals. These, and the immediacy of his narrative, make up for the rather pointillistic treatment of his subject. For public and academic libraries.-R. James Tobin, Univ. of Wisconsin Lib., Milwaukee

Library Journal