Alistair Horne is the author of eighteen previous books, including A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954—1962, The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916, How Far from Austerlitz?: Napoleon 1805—1815 and the official biography of British prime minister Harold Macmillan. He is a fellow at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, and lives in Oxfordshire. He was awarded the French Légion d’Honneur in 1993 and received a knighthood in 2003 for his work on French history.
“Knowledgeable and colorful, written with gusto and love. . . .
[An] ambitious and skillful narrative that covers the history of
Paris with considerable brio and fervor”—The Los Angeles Times Book
Review
“Consistently bewitching. . . . [Horne] renders France unusually
vivid by focusing on the one corner of it that millions of
foreigners have toured or lived in or dreamed about.” --The New
York Times Book Review
"Horne gives readers a wonderful sense of everyday life in Paris at
every turn and displays a convincing understanding of the Parisian
character." –San Francisco Chronicle
“A fluid, graceful, deliberate prose stylist. . . . Horne’s purpose
is not to be encyclopedic but to paint a portrait, and this he does
surpassingly well.” –The Washington Post Book World
London is male, New York sexually ambivalent, writes Horne. But "has any sensible person ever doubted that Paris is fundamentally a woman?" The renowned historian (The Fall of Paris, etc.) thus conceives of his history of the city of lights as "linked biographical essays, depicting seven ages... in the long, exciting life of a sexy and beautiful, but also turbulent, troublesome and sometimes excessively violent woman." Horne's admittedly idiosyncratic seven ages begin in the 13th century, when King Philippe Auguste made Paris the administrative and cultural center of France. The second age was that of the Protestant Henri of Navarre (later King Henri IV) who, after unsuccessfully besieging the city, converted to Catholicism because, he said, "Paris is worth a mass," and began "to clear away the cluttered medieval quartiers... and replace them with an orderly, classical elegance." The third era was that of King Louis XIV, a period of amazing cultural flowering, though the Sun King moved the seat of government away from Paris, to Versailles. Napoleon brought to Paris a postrevolutionary stability and grandeur, and began to construct a modern sewer system. Under Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann, during the city's fifth age, Paris was remade, but the era ended with the bloodletting of the Commune. Age six took the city from the belle epoque through the beginning of WWII, and the last from the occupation to 1969. Horne brings to this brilliant and entertaining account the same urban passion that Peter Ackroyd brought to his recent "biography" of London-and it is sure to delight Francophiles everywhere. 8 pages of color and 16 pages of b&w illus. not seen by PW. (Nov. 15) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
"Knowledgeable and colorful, written with gusto and love. . . .
[An] ambitious and skillful narrative that covers the history of
Paris with considerable brio and fervor"-The Los Angeles Times
Book Review
"Consistently bewitching. . . . [Horne] renders France
unusually vivid by focusing on the one corner of it that millions
of foreigners have toured or lived in or dreamed about." --The
New York Times Book Review
"Horne gives readers a wonderful sense of everyday life in
Paris at every turn and displays a convincing understanding of the
Parisian character." -San Francisco Chronicle
"A fluid, graceful, deliberate prose stylist. . . . Horne's
purpose is not to be encyclopedic but to paint a portrait, and this
he does surpassingly well." -The Washington Post Book
World
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