Description
Book SynopsisThe Invention of Paris is a tour through the streets and history of the French capital under the guidance of radical Parisian author and publisher Eric Hazan.
Hazan reveals a city whose squares echo with the riots, rebellions and revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Combining the raconteur's ear for a story with a historian's command of the facts, he introduces an incomparable cast of characters: the literati, the philosophers and the artists - Balzac, Baudelaire, Blanqui, Flaubert, Hugo, Maney, and Proust, of course; but also Doisneau, Nerval and Rousseau.
It is a Paris dyed a deep red in its convictions. It is haunted and vitalized by the history of the barricades, which Hazan retells in rich detail.
The Invention of Paris opens a window on the forgotten byways of the capital's vibrant and bloody past, revealing the city in striking new colors.
Trade Review[Hazan] stalks the capital, fulminating about the nineteenth and twentieth centuries' artistic and political rebellions. * Bookforum *
Detailed, passionate ... Any visit to [Paris] would be made richer by taking the time to read Hazan's book. -- Angela Meyer * Bookslut *
This is a wondrous book, either to be read at home with a decent map, or carried about
sur place through areas no tourists bother with. -- Adam Thorpe * The Guardian *
Hazan is all business. He trudges through Paris street by street, quoting what Balzac, Hugo, Baudelaire or Kafka said about a particular spot, pointing out where barricades were once erected and thieves gathered for drinks. -- Donald Morrison * Financial Times *
Amid the intellectual murkiness of the European scene, a few bright flames are burning: as witness the work of Eric Hazan. * New Left Review *
[F]ew will be able to resist ... Hazan's brick-by-brick account of the city's history of strife and political posturing is riveting. * Publishers Weekly *
Do you want to be happy? Buy this book and take a stroll. * Les Inrockuptibles *
Hazan wants to rescue individual moments from general forgetting and key sites from the bland homogenization of international city development; he is also a passionate left-wing historian seeking to rescue the truth of Paris's revolutionary past. -- Julian Barnes * London Review of Books *
One of the greatest books about the city anyone has written in decades, towering over a crowded field, passionate and lyrical and sweeping and immediate. * New York Review of Books *
This book is both a political and aesthetic delight, uncovering the real mysteries of Paris. -- Andrew Hussey, author of
Paris: The Secret HistoryWith its astonishing breadth of reference and incredible detail, this is a must for all lovers of Paris. -- Kevin Rushby, author of
Paradise: A History of the Idea that Rules the World[A] stunning book. -- Aaron Freundschuh * H-Net Reviews *
