An engrossing account of Paris under Napoleon III, from the palaces and opera houses to the barricades and cafÇs. Christiansen (Romantic Affinities, 1988) has crafted a sensitive portrait of Paris, seen by many as a modern Babylon of sex and sin, and by others as a contemporary Jerusalem alive with a spirit of innovation. The subtitle is misleading, for the author doesn't arrive at the Commune until 300 pages into the work. Yet the book's strong point is its structure: It begins with an introductory tourist guide to Paris, culled from contemporary sources, from which we learn that ``one French appetite is sufficient for two Anglo-Saxon appetites'' and that ``Paris, the City of Light is a veritable charivari of pleasure after nightfall.'' Seven chapters examine the social, political, and cultural life of Paris under the reign of Napoleon III. From the micro to the macro, from the public to the personal, Christiansen lays bare the virtues and vices of the first modern city. During war with Prussia (187071), Paris was besieged for five months and suffered the indignity of having Prussian troops march through the heart of the city. Here Christiansen switches to a day-by-day description of the siege, the civil war, and the birth of the Commune in March, a popularly elected left-wing (though not Marxist) municipal government. The city was immediately besieged again, this time by the Versailles army determined to exterminate the virus of communism. The Commune descended into a paroxysm of fire, violence, and barbarity. The army of Versailles suffered 877 casualties while slaughtering tens of thousands of communards. Christiansen concludes that the cause of such barbarism is never far from the surface of civilization and that our contemporary society bears a frightening resemblance to Parisian society before the Commune. An entertaining, disturbing excursion through the City of Light at a defining moment in French history, led by a capable guide.
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-670-83131-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
