Witty, learned and informative at lightning speed (the author does the Commune in about 16 pages), Rupert Christiansen’s City of Light: The Making of Modern Paris offers the fascinating story of a metamorphosis ... Christiansen enhances his lively account of this transformative era with a bibliography for further reading, as well as wonderful photographs and period illustrations throughout ... this little book will make you want to walk the expansive elegance of Paris, as well as its back streets, from one end to the other, seeking out French history in the sites it brings so vividly to life.
If you are heading for Paris this summer be sure to put City of Light in your bag. Besides being a cracking read, it will open your eyes to the reality of what you see around you. It’s common knowledge that the reason Louis Napoleon tore down old Paris, and replaced its narrow alleys with broad boulevards, was to stop the mutinous plebs building barricades. But, like much common knowledge, that turns out to be less than half the truth. Rupert Christiansen’s account of the destruction and rebuilding is masterly — vivid, dramatic, admirably compact and ultimately tragic.
... concise and compelling ... Christiansen rightly describes Haussmann’s approach as ruthless, but does not quite do justice to Haussmann’s own term for his method—éventrement, or evisceration ... With just 170 pages of text, Christiansen could not do full justice to [how important Paris's expansion of sewers was to the city] ... Yet another victim of the book’s apparently forced brevity is its account of the Commune.
Mr. Christiansen’s book is a highly readable introductory text, not an academic treatise. He does not propose a new perspective on the crafty and imperious baron and his illustrious works, nor does he engage other historians in the lively debates surrounding him ... City of Light sheds little new light ... Instead Mr. Christiansen grounds Haussmann’s story in the political turmoil of the times ... What comes across clearly in Mr. Christiansen’s account is that Haussmann operated skillfully in a highly complex political environment, making his accomplishments all the more astounding. Some of the controversies the author avoids, though, would help explain the relevance his story has for cities in our current age ... City of Light should whet readers’ appetites to pursue Haussmann’s story further.
...Author Christiansen focuses his efforts on illuminating Haussmann’s personality, his remarkable intelligence, and his foresight ... Good reading for all lovers of the City of Light.
...The author details how this campaign of leveling and building transformed Paris from curved forms into straight lines and broad vistas, creating almost as much upheaval as improvement ... The author also showcases the influence exerted by an era of free trade and burgeoning technologies. He develops a crisply written narrative that moves from Louis' ascent to the presidency through France's disastrous war with Prussia, the collapse of the Second Empire, and the bloodbath of a Parisian civil war.
Capsule character studies of Louis and Haussmann enrich an engrossing short history that reminds us of the urban planning and social engineering blunders we continue to make today.
Christiansen, a writer on the arts for the British Daily Telegraph, describes how, during the Second Empire period (1851–1871), Paris became a modern city known for its broad boulevards lined with five- or six-story apartment buildings, parks, and monuments. The city’s population had grown rapidly, and 'its oases of splendor, such as the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe, [were] surrounded by a fetid wilderness of filth, stench, and crime.' Almost single-handedly responsible for the city’s transformation was Georges Eugène Haussmann, a kind of mid-19th-century French Robert Moses ...This very readable volume is a valuable contribution to modern French and urban history.
