| Title | : | City of Light |
|---|---|---|
| Author | : | Rupert Christiansen |
| Release | : | 2018-10-09 |
| Kind | : | ebook |
| Genre | : | European History, Books, History, Travel & Adventure, Travel in Europe |
| Size | : | 37425256 |
| A sparkling account of the nineteenth-century reinvention of Paris as the most beautiful, exciting city in the world In 1853, French emperor Louis Napoleon inaugurated a vast and ambitious program of public works in Paris, directed by Georges-Eugè Haussmann, the prefect of the Seine. Haussmann transformed 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 rail 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. Lively and engaging, City of Light is a book for anyone who wants to know how Paris became Paris. |
