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Book Cover for: Paris, City of Dreams: Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Creation of Paris, Mary McAuliffe

Paris, City of Dreams: Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Creation of Paris

Mary McAuliffe

Hardcover
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"Armchair historians in particular will appreciate McAuliffe's readable yet detailed history supplemented with illustrations and bibliography." Booklist, Starred Review - This book traces the profound transformation of the City of Light during Napoléon III's Second Empire, as he and Georges Haussmann completely rebuilt Paris in less than two decades.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
  • Publish Date: Apr 9th, 2020
  • Pages: 344
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.10in - 6.20in - 1.30in - 1.30lb
  • EAN: 9781538121283
  • Categories: • Europe - France• History - Romanticism• Urban & Land Use Planning

About the Author

McAuliffe, Mary: - Mary McAuliffe received a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland and has taught at several universities and lectured at the Smithsonian Institution. For many years she was a regular contributor to Paris Notes. She has traveled extensively in France and is the author of Dawn of the Belle Epoque: The Paris of Monet, Zola, Bernhardt, Eiffel, Debussy, Clemenceau, and Their Friends. She lives in New York City with her husband.

Praise for this book

A brilliant social historian.
McAuliffe has an eye for the evocative, using quotes--and salacious details--to bring [Paris] to life.
Rich with the flavor of words taken from primary sources, [Mary McAuliffe's books] provide an intimate look at the very human side of history.
McAuliffe's knowledge of and enthusiasm for this time is evident on every page.

On the surface Dr. McAuliffe, the author of several books on the history of Paris, gives us an interesting account of the redesign and reconstruction of the "City of Light" by Baron Hausmann during the Second French Empire. But beyond that, she also offers an excellent overview of - or perhaps introduction to - France in the era of Louis Napoleon, from the formation of the Second Republic in 1848 through the collapse of the Second Empire and creation of the Third Republic in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune in 1870-1871. McAuliffe touches on government, politics, culture, society, art, theatre, literature, diplomacy, science, and more, including military policy and several wars.

[A] wonderful and fascinating book. . . . Acclaimed historian Mary McAuliffe vividly recaptures the Paris of Napoleon III, Claude Monet, and Victor Hugo as Georges Haussmann tore down and rebuilt Paris into the beautiful City of Light we know today. . . . Napoleon III, whose reign abruptly ended after he led France into a devastating war against Germany, has been forgotten. But the Paris that he created has endured, brought to vivid life through McAuliffe's rich illustrations and evocative narrative.

Her reputation as a social and literary historian of Paris already cemented, McAuliffe returns with a detailed history of the City of Light and its nineteenth-century transformation into the sophisticated, envied capital. Its wide boulevards, monumental architecture, health-improving sewers and aqueducts, and efficient transportation systems began in earnest in the 1850's under Napoleon III and his chief urban planner, Georges-Eugène Haussmann. Before becoming Emperor, Louis Napoleon in his London exile already had formulated plans for extending broad avenues west of the Louvre. With Haussmann's skills at planning and at creating political will to action, the new Emperor created substantial parks on the city's outskirts and built conveniently situated train stations for the novel technology of rail travel. Razing tenements and codifying design for new apartment buildings, Haussmann constructed the cityscapes of Paris so beloved in the twentieth century. Urban elegance came at the cost of democratic rule as the former republic hardened into autocracy. Armchair historians in particular will appreciate McAuliffe's readable yet detailed history supplemented with illustrations and bibliography.
The re-creation of Paris from a medieval urban maze to the city of lights and boulevards comes to life in Mary McAuliffe's historical exposé . . . an enlightening and overwhelming story of a tumultuous and transformative Parisian period.
As the world's most magical city, Paris was created over the centuries by kings, emperors, and presidents, but, as Mary McAuliffe so magisterially reveals in Paris, City of Dreams, no one played a greater role in the modern configuration of this wondrous city than Louis-Napoleon and his chief urban advisor, Baron Georges Haussmann. Reading this masterful account, one realizes how Napoleon III and Haussmann transformed a city of narrow lanes, insalubrious dwellings, and staggering pestilence into a triumph of vital sanitation and unparalleled beauty, creating the broad boulevards and architectural masterpieces so universally admired.
If you want to know how Paris came to look as it does, read this book! Mary McAuliffe has written a thoroughly entertaining account of the politics and business behind Haussmann's famous boulevards. Weaving the lives of artists and writers into the tale of the city's transformation, Paris, City of Dreams is also a well-informed history of France's Second Empire and its inglorious end.