A Woman's Paris ~ Joie de Vivre

Subscribers, signed-copies of How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City by acclaimed author Joan DeJean. Free book giveaway to two subscribers ends March 11, 2014.

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Joan DeJean is Trustee Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of nine books on French literature, history, and material culture, including most recently The Age of Comfort: When Paris Discovered Casual and the Modern Home Began and The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour.

Paris has been known for its grand boulevards, magnificent river views, and endless shopping for longer than one might think. While Baron Haussmann is usually credited as being the architect of the Paris we know today, with his major redevelopment of the city in the 19th century, Joan DeJean reveals that the Parisian model for urban space was in fact invented two centuries earlier. In her new book, How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City (March 4, 2014; Bloomsbury hardcover), DeJean uncovers that the first full design for the French capital was implemented in the 17th century, and with her characteristic verve and careful research fully brings to life a city in the midst of reinvention.

“Although 19th-century Baron Haussmann often receives credit for Paris’s iconic features, this witty and engaging work shows that it was the 17th-century Bourbon monarchs who first transformed Paris into the prototype of the modern city that would inspire the world… With panache and examples from primary sources, guidebooks, maps, and paintings, she illustrates how Paris changed people’s conception of a city’s potential.” — Publishers Weekly

“Illuminating… DeJean obviously knows and loves Paris, and she provides coherent history that effectively explains the evolution of a city built by a few prescient men.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“[An] engaging history of the growth of Paris into a modern city.” — Booklist

Joan DeJean is Trustee Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Joan DeJean is the author of nine books on French literature, history, and material culture, including most recently The Age of Comfort: When Paris Discovered Casual and the Modern Home Began and The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour. She lives in Philadelphia and, when in Paris, on the street where the number 4 bus began service on July 5, 1662. For more information about Joan DeJean, visit: (Bloomsbury)(Purchase)

Photo: Candace diCarlo

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