Paris Dreams, Paris Memories

Book Description

A rich and entertaining history of the French capital's predominant myths and image-making from the nineteenth century to the present.

Author's Perspective

How did Paris become the world favorite it is today? Charles Rearick argues that we can best understand Paris as several cities in one, each with its own history and its own imaginary shaped by dream and memory.

Paris as a City

Paris has long been at once a cosmopolitan City of Light and of modernity, a patchwork of time-resistant villages, a treasured heirloom, a hell for the disinherited, and a legendary pleasure dome.

Focus of the Book

Focusing on the last century and a half, Paris Dreams, Paris Memories makes contemporary Paris understandable. It tells of renewal projects radically transforming neighborhoods and of counter-measures taken to perpetuate the city's historic character and soul.

Historical and Comparative Analysis

It provides a historically grounded look at the troubled suburbs. Further, it tests long-standing characterizations of Paris's uniqueness through comparisons with such rivals as London and Berlin.

Conclusion

Paris Dreams, Paris Memories shows that in myriad forms—buildings, monuments, festivities, and artistic portrayals—contemporary Paris gives new life to visions of the city long etched in Parisian imaginations.

Reviews

A pleasure to read. —Catherine Clark, H-Urban

Fascinating. —Nicoleta Bazgan, Contemporary French Civilization

Rearick is an expert guide. —Jeffrey H. Jackson, Rhodes College

Like a pleasant stroll through the city, one finds much that one has already seen, but also plenty that one has not. —Stephen Sawyer, French History

Rearick has written not so much a history of Paris, but a history of the history of Paris. —William Irvine, York University