City of light: the making of modern paris

Description

Louis Napoleon and the second empire -- The problem of Paris -- Marvels of the new Babylon -- Pleasures of the new Babylon -- Haussmann's downfall -- The end of the second empire -- Paris's civil war.;"In 1853 the French emperor Louis Napoleon inaugurated a vast and ambitious program of public works, directed by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the prefect of the Seine. Haussmann's renovation of Paris would transform the old medieval city of squalid slums and disease-ridden alleyways into a "City of Light" characterized by wide boulevards, apartment blocks, parks, squares and public monuments, new railway stations and department stores, and a new system of public sanitation. City of Light charts this fifteen-year project of urban renewal which-despite the interruptions of war, revolution, corruption, and bankruptcy-set a template for nineteenth and early twentieth-century urban planning and created the enduring landscape of modern Paris now so famous around the globe. A lively and engaging read, City of Light is a book for anyone who wants to know how Paris became Paris"-- Louis Napoleon and the second empire -- The problem of Paris -- Marvels of the new Babylon -- Pleasures of the new Babylon -- Haussmann's downfall -- The end of the second empire -- Paris's civil war.