Paris, City of Dreams

Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Creation of Paris

By: Mary McAuliffe

Narrated by: Tim H. Dixon

Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

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. Paris, City of Dreams traces the transformation of the City of Light during Napoleon III’s Second Empire into the beloved city of today. Together, Napoleon III and his right-hand man, Georges Haussmann, completely rebuilt Paris in less than two decades - a breathtaking achievement made possible not only by the emperor’s vision and Haussmann’s determination but by the regime’s unrelenting authoritarianism, augmented by the booming economy that Napoleon fostered. 

Yet a number of Parisians refused to comply with the restrictions that censorship and entrenched institutional taste imposed. Mary McAuliffe follows the lives of artists such as Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and Claude Monet, as well as writers such as Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, and the poet Charles Baudelaire, while from exile, Victor Hugo continued to fire literary broadsides at the emperor he detested. McAuliffe brings to life a pivotal era encompassing not only the physical restructuring of Paris but also the innovative forms of banking and money-lending that financed industrialization as well as the city’s transformation. This in turn created new wealth and lavish excess, even while producing extreme poverty. More deeply, change was occurring in the way people looked at and understood the world around them, given the new ease of transportation and communication, the popularization of photography, and the emergence of what would soon be known as Impressionism in art and Naturalism and Realism in literature - artistic yearnings that would flower in the Belle Epoque. 

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.

©2020 Mary McAuliffe (P)2020 Rowman & Littlefield

Superb

Deceptively organized as a simple chronicle that proceeds from year to year, this work is in fact a skillfully wrought tapestry, with crisscrossing threads that appear in one context, vanish, the reappear in new settings; yet each time providing us with a fuller and fuller picture of Paris’ social and cultural life. Required listening for anyone interested in the literature, music, art or architecture of the time.

Outstanding! Entertaining and informative

If only someone had corrected the narrator's pronunciation of "Guerre” du Nord and Dumas "fille". These silly errors were repeated frequently.

Otherwise, perfect!

Fabulously rich book, defied expectations

Having thought I’d learn about Haussmann’s work to create Paris, the book provided so much more and was a rich read, broad in scope and depth and brought to life Paris of the Second Empire. Including details of the developing lives of Manet, Zola, Monet, Bernhardt, Morisot, and others, it was a fascinating multi faceted read. Only irritation was the American narrator which did not fit at all for me. Otherwise superb.