Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
Paris: The Biography of a City
by
Colin Jones
From the Roman Emperor Julian, who waxed rhapsodic about Parisian wine and figs, to Henry Miller, who relished its seductive bohemia, Paris has been a perennial source of fascination for 2,000 years. In this definitive and illuminating history, Colin Jones walks us through the city that was a plague-infested charnel house during the Middle Ages, the bloody epicenter of the...more
ebook, 592 pages
Published
April 4th 2006
by Penguin Books
(first published 2004)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
547)
This book is a biography of a city from Roman times to the present day. It is uneven but is worth sticking with it. He warms to the task in covering that great urban planner Haussmann who together with Napoleon III, remade the city and began what we call urbanism, he targeted the revitalization of the center city and build broad boulevards radiating out of the city. He also built beautiful train stations with the idea of radiating out by rail to reinforce that Paris was the heart of the country....more
This book's front cover proudly features a quote by Neil McGregor, director of the British Museum, who called this book "Exhilarating." Sounds like a good enough recommendation, but let's consider the source: generally, the sort of people who become directors of world-famous museums are also the sort of people who think that looking at pottery shards is exhilarating.
What I'm trying to say here is that while Paris: The Biography of a City is certainly interesting for those who really want to lea...more
What I'm trying to say here is that while Paris: The Biography of a City is certainly interesting for those who really want to lea...more
2 likes · like · see review
view all 3 comments
A good, solid tour through Parisian history, starting with Roman times and proceeding through the turn of this new century. Jones does an excellent job of navigating the tricky intersection between national and local politics that has made the city's history so complex, and particularly shines in his recounting of the time between Louis XIV and Napoleon Bonaparte. Much attention is justly paid to the architecture and the preservationist campaigns in Paris, particularly as it relates to Haussmann...more
Writing a book about a place with as storied a history and culture as Paris can't be easy, but I found this an absorbing read. From Paris's prehistoric origins through to modern times, Jones examines how the city has developed over the centuries in great detail, looking at politics, society, culture, and geography. It's organized generally in chronological order, but each chapter also includes several "feature boxes", which are essentially sidebars covering in more detail specific topics, such a...more
Nov 01, 2011
Brian
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
european-history-france,
urban-history
This books greatest strength and weakness is that it is one of the most thorough overviews on the city of Paris history that has been written yet. Unlike many it goes into wonderful detail on the early years of Paris and the build up on the Isle de cite. One of the other drawbacks is that the maps of Paris in the back are just okay but if you have a Paris travel book with good maps you will be better served for following the authors descriptions. The downside to the detail is that you can get bo...more
An excellent incite into the revolutionary power of the urban Parisian zeitgeist. Jones' dictations about the vibrant relationship of Paris versus the French nation as a cultural indicator and national paramount are fascinating and revaltory towards the complex political and cultural beast that is France. A must read for any Revolutionaries seeking to comprehend their history, as well as those reverent Francophiles seeking to swim in Parisian lore.
Superb history focused on the growth and development of the history of Paris! Part of me wishes I'd read this before I went to Paris, but a greater part is well aware that it means more being able to make the appropriate connections as I read it. This is also one of those reads that makes learning fun. I learned a lot about unexpected things (what a diligence looks like, and its size) as well as things I'd expected to learn.
The other reviews are pretty dead on - very thorough, and I loved the discussion about the "sites of memory" in the intro and throughout the book (not that it's a novel subject, but I find that just knowing which places are identified by these terms - and who identifies them - reveals a lot about a place's history). The maps could've been better and should've been interspersed with the writing, and a lot of pictures had no captions. It's a LOT of information at once, and, as others have pointed...more
Apr 25, 2013
Eddy Allen
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
arts-and-historical
From the Roman Emperor Julian, who waxed rhapsodic about Parisian wine and figs, to Henry Miller, who relished its seductive bohemia, Paris has been a perennial source of fascination for 2,000 years. In this definitive and illuminating history, Colin Jones walks us through the city that was a plague-infested charnel house during the Middle Ages, the bloody epicenter of the French Revolution, the muse of nineteenth-century Impressionist painters, and much more. Jones’s masterful narrative is enha...more
It seems a lot of people don't link this book very much. Honestly, it isn't very engaging at all. It really put me in the mind of "one damn thing after another." The book still manages to be interesting, but only so long as the reader manages to stay interested, through his own means, in the topic. Definitely NOT a good "first book" in approaching Paris and its history.
The most interesting in depth study of Paris ... Infrastructure, intellectuals, daily life, relationship with royalty, conflicts, growth, education, trash, health .... Everything Parisian. Enjoyed the sidebar stories. Not an easy read but fascinating as preparation for my 10 day trip through the various arrondissement.
Jan 15, 2011
Lynda
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
history buffs
Recommended to Lynda by:
lyndafn@yahoo.com
This is not a light read. You have to want to know everything there is to know about Paris. I have to wonder how easy it would have been to read if I had never been to Paris and didn't know much about the city.
Despite all of this I liked the book. It was interesting and filled with a lot of minutia that I did not know. Parts of the book are engrossing, but it is mainly a dry read.
Recommended for people who love travel and history.
Despite all of this I liked the book. It was interesting and filled with a lot of minutia that I did not know. Parts of the book are engrossing, but it is mainly a dry read.
Recommended for people who love travel and history.
Read this for my summer history class about the history of Paris. This tells you EVERYTHING you could possibly want to know about this history of the city, sometimes in exhausting detail. Some of that level of detail I could have done without. A bit slow and tedious reading at times, but overall interesting. Good for a class, but I wouldn't recommend picking it up on your own if you want a little context for your trip to Paris. Get Rick Steves for that (haven't read his Paris book, but I enjoyed...more
Somehow this book never caught fire. The details are there, but not the excitement, the smell, the feel of the prominent players, the revolution. It is more interested in the grid map, walls, architects and housing developments.
it is what it is. Dry at times but full of interesting stuff. The twentieth century is given too little attention, and the latter part of the book is more about France than Paris.
Great overview from Lutetia, St. Genevieve, Philip Augustus, Henry III, Louis IX, XIV, 1789, Napolean I and III. Good preparation for my trip to Paris in November.
an excellent history of Paris from it's earliest beginnings as a tiny Roman settlement to the present day. I read this while on holiday in Paris!
Interesting look at Paris' history. Very detailed, and often I wanted to see the bigger picture of what was going on in France at the time, but the book stuck to its mission of only presenting Paris' attributes to history. Well done and worth the effort to read if you've ever been struck by the romance and culture of Paris.
I read this as research for my novel, My Phantom: The Memoir of Christine Daaé. Another great book about my favorite European city.
pretty decent history of city good to read after some tourism, told at breakneck speed. Learned a lot from it.
I really like Paris and I want to like this book, but holy boring book, Batman! I've stopped reading this for now and moved on.
This is a straightforward historical narrative of the development of Paris since the earliest years of its habitation, written in an engaging style and supplemented with several additional 2-3 page subtopics per chapter that provide additional color and detail about an aspect of Parisian life and history relevant to that chapter's focus. It made an excellent companion to Graham Robb's more idiosyncratic "Parisans: An Adventure History of Paris."
Easily the best history of Paris.
Reading this one in preparation for our Paris trip later this year. Being aware of history adds immeasurably to my appreciation of just about anything.
Really, really good. If you've been to Paris, it's far more interesting. I did find that the author got really bogged down into the details of city planning from the mid-1800s and continues for the last 50 pages of the book and yet he seems to gloss over major events like the Revolution, Napoleon's ascension, the World Wars. But someone renames a street and he spends two 'graphs talking about it.
A very long, somewhat exhausting, scholarly but almost always entertaining read. The chronological narrative is leavened by boxes on topics that are useful detours on subjects ranging from the Louvre to Josephine Baker. A fine book from which I learned a lot that will enhance my appreciation and understanding of Paris. But maybe too long for most casual readers, and I could have done with less detail on the early years and more on the 19th and 20th centuries.
Very comprehensive history of Paris starting around 50 BC when it was known as Lutetia by Julius Caesar. Enjoyable to those who are familiar with and have a great interest in the city's past, but more of a reference to the average tourist. I found much of this book very interesting especially since I recently spent a lot of time wandering around this amazing city. It tends to get somewhat dry in places, but overall a worthy read as the biography that it is.
A good, overall review. It gets a little biblical sometimes, in its tendency to cram people and events chronologically into sections. (And then so and so begot whatshisface, who did this and that, and then begot her, who slept with her father, who became King of France, and so they spaketh...)
But, you know, the Bible is a pretty good historical overview, too. So there you go.
But, you know, the Bible is a pretty good historical overview, too. So there you go.
A thorough history of Paris as a unique entity, not seen particularly as the capital of France. It skips around a bit chronologically, which can be confusing given how dense the book is, but overall it is quite enjoyable to those who already have a basic understanding of Parisian history.
Upon finishing it I must say that I loved it... definitely for nerds, though.
Upon finishing it I must say that I loved it... definitely for nerds, though.
Pretty much a complete history of this great city. Makes me want to get on the next plane and spend a month or two. The nsidebars are great little stories as well. I would like to find similar books about some other cites.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
