The Invention of Paris: A History in FootstepsThe 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. |
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13th arrondissement Arcades Arcades Project arrondissement artists Atget Avenue Balzac barricade Barrière Bastille Bédollière Belleville Benjamin Blanqui Boulevard building built Café cemetery centre century Champs-Élysées Chapelle Charles Baudelaire Charonne Château church Cité Cited Clichy close corner of Rue courtyard crossed crowd Delvau demolished despite École famous Farmers-General Faubourg du Temple Faubourg Saint-Antoine Faubourg Saint-Marceau fire fortifications France François gardens Gare Gare Saint-Lazare Grenelle Halles Haussmann Histoire Honoré de Balzac Hôtel houses immense insurgents insurrection June La Comédie humaine Lamartine later Latin Quarter Left Bank Les Misérables lived Louis Louvre Madeleine Manet Marais Ménilmontant Mercier Métro Montmartre Montparnasse National Guard night painting Palais-Royal Panthéon Paris Paris Paris Parisian Passage Passy photograph Place Poissonière police Porte Saint-Denis Proust Quai republican République revolution Richelieu Right Bank royal Rue Saint-Jacques Saint Saint-Germain Saint-Honoré Saint-Lazare Saint-Martin Salon side square streets theatre took Tuileries wall workers wrote