City of Light, City of Shadows: Paris in the Belle Époque

by Mike Rapport

A top historian offers a new history of Paris’s Belle Époque, the luminous age of the Eiffel Tower and the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, but also of social unrest and violent clashes over what it meant to be French

From the wrought ironwork of the Eiffel Tower to the flourishing art nouveau movement, the Belle Époque is remembered as a golden age for Parisian culture. Beneath the veneer of elegance, however, fin de siècle Paris was a city at war with itself.  
 
In City of Light, City of Shadows , Mike Rapport uncovers a Paris riven by social anxieties and plagued by overlapping epidemics of poverty, political extremism, and anti-Semitism. As the Sacré-Cœur and Eiffel Tower rose into the skies, redefining architecture and the Paris skyline, Paris’s slums were plagued by disease and gang violence. The era, now remembered as a high point of French art and culture, was also an age of intense political violence, including anarchist bombings, organized right-wing mobs, and assassinations. 
 
Weaving together these stories of splendor and suffering with the fabric of the city itself, the book offers a brilliant account of Paris’s Belle Époque—revealing the darkness that suffused the City of Light. 

Genres: History, France, Nonfiction, Paris, Art History

448 pages, Hardcover

Published May 14, 2024

About the author

Mike Rapport is a senior lecturer in history at the University of Stirling, in Scotland, where he teaches European history.

He is author of 1848: Year of Revolution (Basic Books, 2009), Nineteenth-Century Europe, 1789-1914 (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005), Nationality and Citizenship in Revolutionary France: The Treatment of Foreigners (Oxford, 2000). He also has a volume forthcoming on The Napoleonic Wars: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2013).

He was elected fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2000. With his colleague, Dr. Kevin Adamson, he is working on a research project on the "domino revolutions" from 1848 to the Arab Awakening of 2011.

Mr. Rapport earned his undergraduate degree in history at the University of Edinburgh and his doctorate, on the French Revolution, at the University of Bristol.

Reviews

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched and written, but almost exclusively focused on politics and civil unrest which was not what I was looking for.

Rapport has written a strong account of the darker side of the Belle Époque here, and if you’re looking for background on that, this book is a good pick.

But if, like me, you’re looking for broader and more expansive coverage of the era and already have that background, this is a bit of a slog.

Rapport does a good job of cramming a lot in and making it read well narratively, but it’s a more mono-focused analysis of the subject than the publisher’s summary leads you to believe.

*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

[Ink · Rating 5 out of 5]

City of Light, City of Shadows by Mike Rapport is quite simply fascinating. I was actually expecting more of an analysis of how the social unrest of the time affected the art moveents of Paris, but instead, this book is far, far more focussed on the history than Art and Photography.

However, this did not dissuade me from reading, as, although my focus was the art and photography aspect, I am an ardent consumer of historical accounts, especially when they are as beautifully written as this one. The Belle Epoque is translated to the "Beautiful Era" and stood at the juncture between the Napoleonic wars and WWI. Indeed, Rapport describes the rise in the socialist movement that was actively trying to prevent WWI and which resulted in the assassination of one of their prominent members (Jean Jaures) in 1914.

The beauty of Art Nouveau blossomed, Renoir painted the spirit of PAris and Picasso created new perspectives in Art, new styles of posters, printing and the beginings of film, Parisienne style was the world leader, setting trends that were copied relentlessly and strived for across the channel

Rapport describes a blossom that grew out of two terrible, desolate, devastating times in history , but brings Paris to life as a living breathing microcosm, more than a city of people, as a being; enduring and changing through time, growing, manifesting and flourishing, as a living, breathing entity in and of itself.

This book is incredibly interesting and certainly a good book for any lover of history, especially this little-reported, but very important era. Naturally it would be overshadowed by WWi and the Napoleonic war and yes, they have every right to take precedence, but I believe that it is equally important to remember those times that gave people the tenacity and hope to endure, and this was certainly one of those times.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this was not quite what I was expectng, but so very glad I had the opportunity to read such a fascinating book

Thank you very very much to Netgalley, Basic Books and Mike Rapport for this excellent ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

[Peeter Talvistu · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like 4.5 stars.

I was expecting a book focusing on culture and the arts (and there is lots of it in the book as well), but it was more a social history with ample dosage of philosophy. Despite this, it is a wonderful in-depth read which looks at the city and the times from truly diverse angles. Although the title prepares you for the contradictions, I would say the focus is more on the darker part of the story, and it really was not a cheerful place where to live. At the same time, it did make me want to take a trip to Paris again and to see the city in a new light.

[Joann · Rating 3 out of 5]

In some ways this book was like a travel guide, taking the reader to various sights, frequently elaborating on the construction of them and their significance. I enjoyed visiting Paris again by way of this well written and informative book.

[Océane G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paris je t’aime

[Derek Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A spiritual successor and update to Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 with a deeper focus on France, I did not expect this book to be so hard-hitting, but that's what made it great. I listened to this audiobook expecting a palate cleanser between two heavy books. I just finished Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How To Take It Back, about how the wealthy hide assets and capture governments, and had When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s in from my holds list. I thought I might benefit from a quick romp through Belle Époque Paris before taking on another existential dread book about American politics. No refuge to be found here.

Unlike other books I've read on the period in Paris, such as In Montmartre: Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art and Dawn of the Belle Epoque: The Paris of Monet, Zola, Bernhardt, Eiffel, Debussy, Clemenceau, and Their Friends, City of Light does not attempt to glide over the strife of the period or fall into the tropes of romanticization of it. In fact, I compare it to Tuchman's The Proud Tower specifically because it is actively trying to remove the rose-tinted glasses of the shell-shocked WWI victims looking back at the period.

As soon as I realized that Rapport was queuing up Jean Jaurès as the main figure of the narrative, I knew it would end with his assassination at the end of the July Crisis. At each turn, Jaurès is portrayed as the center-left voice of reason, and shown to be consistently on the right side of history. I am thoroughly impressed with the vigor and depth that Rapport lays into the psyche of Paris during the Belle Époque, and how he ramps up the intensity gradually. It begins with some basic retellings of the aftermath of the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War, the Commune, and the Hausmann renovations during the Second Empire. Then it covers societal aspects, such as the rural-urban migrations and slums, the rights of women and the grands magasins, and the tensions over the construction of Sacré-Cœur. Through the retelling of the abortive coup by General Boulanger, it became clear to me that this wasn't some breezy read about Paris. What becomes the crescendo of Rapport's searing critique of French society is the miscarriage of justice of the Dreyfus Affair. Rapport makes it exceedingly clear that there was no justification for the railroading of Dreyfus, and provides details that puts modern France's attempts to whitewash then "reconcile" with the Affair to task.

There's this sardonic joke in France that **everyone** was part of the Resistance [to the Nazis during WWII], underlining the fact that Collaborators mostly melted away and fence-sitters retroactively claimed to be part of the scattered militants fighting for a Free France. In a very similar vein, I've sensed a similar attitude to how Zola and Dreyfus have been treated in the century since. Zola is in the Panthéon, French antisemitism paled in comparison to the later Germanic form, and Dreyfus lived to fight and defend France during WWI. All is well, right? Well absolutely not; Rapport describes how Zola's internment in the Panthéon was met by violent mobs that nearly lynched Dreyfus, how antisemitism continued to be rife throughout the military, Church, and student intellectuals well after the Affair, and how Dreyfus never wanted to be a symbol of justice, but to just live his life.

I first learned of the Dreyfus Affair from a temporary exhibit on it in the Musée de Bretagne in Rennes, during my first trip to Europe. The exhibit was in French, and with my middling French, I learned about it as a travesty of justice that played out like a soap opera. Ever since, I've mentally treated it as a gross episode of French history, but an episode nonetheless. It was Rapport's retelling of the Dreyfus Affair that has made me reconsider not only the Affair itself, but the whole of French history. The absolute insanity of not only the campaign against Dreyfus, but his lawyer, and above all, Émile Zola, is not portrayed as an ugly episode, but something pervasive to France and modern society. That the braying for blood in an uncontained media and the fracturing of society is exploited by demagogues. Rapport describes how the ineffective Fourth Republic was only KO'ed by the 1940 Blitzkrieg, and by doing so, implies that French society only moved on from the societal conditions that fostered the Anti-Dreyfusard cause under the treads of a panzer.

The alternate historian in me wonders what French society would have looked like if the anti-German sentiment never got resolved in open war. Whether WWI was "inevitable" is an entire can of worms, but it's clear that Revanchisme over the Franco-Prussian War was a cancer on French ways of thinking. That the cult of the offense and Élan, the sense of degeneration and decadence, and the always-simmering furor over Alsace-Lorraine was only stemmed by the trenches of the Western Front. And that it wasn't until the post-WWII reconstruction and integration of Western Europe that France's cancer was in full remission. Without WWI, would France have become even worse than Germany towards the Jews? Many Jews at the time openly asked that question in the time before Hitler in the wake of Dreyfus, to deadly consequences.

The very name "Belle Époque" illustrates how biased we are to think of it as a lost golden age. Before Rapport's epilogue is an interesting retelling of Henri Bergson's lectures at the Collège de France. Bergson's philosophy blended aspects of physics and metaphysics that pushed back against the cold scientificism of Positivism. Blended with his archetypical appearance of a philosopher and his charisma, his public lectures became a fashionable form of entertainment for en vogue Parisians, while drawing the ire of the nationalist right for being a Jew.

Rapport ending with the Bergson chapter is very effective. This discussion of the rise of entertainment over information (how his lectures were attended less for intellectual pursuits than the performative act of attending it), how Bergson's philosophy should have found a welcome home on the right but didn't because of antisemitism, and society's yearning for something more than Positivism echoes very loudly in 2025. In fact, Rapport's epilogue makes it clear that all the lessons of the Belle Époque need to be heeded today, in the face of again rising nationalism, inequality, and media saturation.

In the end, City of Light is not quite The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914, because the ambition is not to simply dismantle the nostalgia for the period. Rather, Rapport is sounding the alarm that we are again at the point of the societal conditions of the Paris 1871-1914. There are clear lessons to be learned, but only hypothetical answers, since it took two German invasions for Paris to move on from it. One only hopes that our current period of history isn't unjustly romanticized after whatever comes after it.

[Nick Gaschler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mike Rapport’s “City of Light, City of Shadows: Paris in the Belle Epoque” accomplishes what it sets out to do, but I was left rather underwhelmed. Spanning roughly the last two decades of the 19th century up to 1914, the Belle Epoque is generally the “golden age” of Europe in which peace prevailed, modernity rose and these nations, to borrow Christopher Clark’s term, were “sleepwalking” into war. Rapport narrows his scope to France and even more specifically Paris, examining what the Belle Epoque looked like in the French capital. He covers the major bases - the Eiffel Tower, Sacre-Coeur, the Bohemian streets of the Montmartre neighborhood - among other places attempting to discover the tensions that underpinned the nostalgic era. He then transitions into political history and how the Dreyfus Affair was monumental in making Belle Epoque Paris

Rapport makes good arguments here. I agree that the Bell Epoque should not be cast in historical memory as this golden age and specifically in France you get a ton of tension and broader culture wars being fought throughout the age. This book was certainly informative in that regard and having just recently moved on from the horrors of the 1930s and 40s in Richard J Evans Third Reich trilogy, it was interesting to see how many of the ideas that would take hold in Germany were very much alive in Belle Epoque France, setting the foundation for what was to come after World War I. Rapport does a good job illustrating that modernity was not all good. That there were excitements and advantages about new technology like the metro or the advent of the department store and anxieties over cultural and social degeneration. His final warning at the end of the book; that if we are to examine the Belle Epoque with the conflicts of our present moment over modernity, politics, etc in mind, we can find many similarities that make the Belle Epoque almost a warning from the past was true in many respects. There was writing in this book that shined at many spots. I found the chapter on Bohemian culture in Montmartre very interesting and enlightening. We often think of these movements in a modern context and to explore their origin was fascinating.

However, I do feel that this book was a little hard to follow and at times hard to read. Rapport’s thesis is essentially two-fold. He examines Belle Epoque society through the competing fears and excitements over modernity and he examines Belle Epoque society in a political lens tracking the development of the ‘Franco-French war’ between the conservative, clerical, royalist right and the liberal, republican, secular left mainly though the Dreyfus Affair. This is fine, but with regard to the former, I felt that the argument he made about the excitements and anxieties about modernity were mere reflections of the very same culture war between right and left. Rapport would agree as he does not shy away from this fact. So then, was the political battle fought over the Dreyfus Affair between right and left part of this culture war? It’s a weird balance between cultural and political history to make, however, I think the flow of the book would have been better had he fully committed to this culture war thesis. That the essential contention underneath the popular memory of the Belle Epoque in Paris was the culture war between those who embraced advancements be they scientific, political, cultural (feminism, secularization, acceptance of foreigners, etc) and those who rejected these points. The result is a tale of two halves with the first half solely focused on Parisian culture through spatial exploration, a curious historiographical method I will touch on and a strictly political tract that only utilizes spatial exploration as opening anecdotes for the broader argument Rapport makes in the given chapter.

As for the spatial exploration methodology Rapport utilizes, I think it works in theory. Clint Smith does it really really well in “How the Word Is Passed”, my last read. And while Rapport is a fine writer, I didn’t find his descriptions to be enough. Perhaps it is just a lack of familiarity of Paris (probably I’ve only been once when I was 11) but with a lack of supporting images through insertions in the text or via plates, I felt unfortunately lost in much of what Rapport was describing. He spoke of the city as if the reader should have a deep familiarity with Paris which made it even harder to follow at times as well. So, I don’t dislike the methodology, I just did not get a full appreciation for it because I was unfamiliar. Context continued to be an issue throughout the book as it moves in loose chronological order, starting somewhere in the 1870s-80s and finishing in 1914, but I didn’t feel in the first half at least there was enough context of French history during the period to keep up. Perhaps this speaks to the organizational issues. Blending together the political with the cultural and social history may have fixed it.

In conclusion, while informative and enlightening, I sadly found myself lost too much in this book. I understood and appreciated the argument, but felt it could have been clearer and better organized. It was a fine analysis on why the Belle Epoque isn’t what it is commonly remembered as, that there were in fact important social, cultural, political tensions that quickly dissipate the nostalgia associated with the period, but I think I was left wanting more, even if it was just clearer direction.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

The very name applied to the period between about 1880 and World War I in Paris indicates retrospective nostalgia. Mike Rapport, who teaches history at Stirling in Scotland, makes it clear that when it was in progress it wasn't so very 'belle.' In so doing, he serves up constant resemblances between then and now, which are only echoes in the text but are made explicit in the conclusion.

The gulf between rich and poor was wide and growing, and the expansion of a middle class who shopped at the new department stores couldn't paper over the struggles of the starving. The focus on specific places in the city loosens gradually as the story progresses, and the maps are maybe a little too small to help people who don't have the map of the city memorized. The most instructive part of the book consists of the sections focusing on Emile Zola, Alfred Dreyfus, the explosion of newspapers on either side of the miscarriage of justice that was the Dreyfus "affair," and the dangers caused by mobs of right wing antisemites who were ginned up by the anti-Dreyfus press to ensure that the doing of real justice was impeded at every turn.

Does that sound anything like today? It should. And it's frightening to consider the fact of what France had to go through to put that period behind it (to the extent that it is). Not a great prognosis for the US or England, to consider that our voices of reason are going to have to be drowned in the blood of the innocent before we can come out the other side even to a small degree Then people formed mobs screaming hatred of Jews, now it's Muslims, migrants, black people, transgender people...

On the way to that sobering series of chapters, we find out about Sacre-Coeur, the Eiffel Tower, the Metro, and other landmarks created during the not-so-Belle Epoque in Paris. Rapport's focus on the people he names at the beginning is a little elastic, and the poet from Vietnam hardly comes into the story at all, so including him seems like a good idea that didn't really work in practice.

On the whole, though, for anyone interested in Paris or the history of Europe will find a lot of interest in this book, as well as a cure for nostalgia.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read an advance galley of this book.

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paris during the Belle Epoque is remembered for a time of the arts, sparkling fashion, cafe life and great changes in architecture including the widening of the boulevards and the Eiffel Tower. What is not so often remembered is the flip side: the poverty, political unrest and anti-Semitism. Rapport shows both sides in this history that covers the 1880s until WWI and how often they went hand-in-hand. Paris as a city becomes all the more alive with the dirt and struggles than if the focus is just on the arts and sparkle which gives off an artificial façade.

A well done history that gives a balanced view of a fascinating city during a pivotal time that is still remembered with great nostalgia today. A great read for anyone who is fascinated with this city and this time period and even for those of you who are not.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

[Drew Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is incredibly well researched. I will say it can be very dense, but the author does do nice job of adding some humor and character to the writing. Some chapters are super fun as well as being informative. Beginning with the meaning behind two of the most iconic Parisian buildings, to hearing about the start of the department store, and to the complicated events that transpired during the Dreyfus Affair, this book goes very in depth to a very overshadowed part of French history. One thing I wish it talked more about was the art landscape during this time. This is the age of the impressionists, and post impressionists and they were really only briefly covered during a couple of pages in 1 chapter. All in all good book for those interested in French History, but could be hard for those who aren’t. LAST AND MOST IMPORTANT(because I forgot to include it earlier) the best part of this book is how you can see events/themes of the past and how they are relevant today.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read between Smee's 'Paris in Ruins' and a re-reading of 'Swann's Way,' (which, no, I still cannot bring myself to call 'The Way by Swann's') this fitted in very nicely. I'm a little unsure about the structure, which starts off thematically, and not especially grippingly, but then moves into more of a narrative, which I enjoyed. Others have suggested this is too political history, but that's really only the second half of the book; the first half is entirely social-cultural. Perhaps I am just old, but the other way round makes more sense: here's what happened at the bird's eye view, here's who Dreyfus/Zola etc are; then, here's how the department store developed. But in general, a nicely written, easy read.

(Fair warning: I wouldn't say I learned much new here, and if you're very new to the topic, I might be over-stating how easy it is to read.)

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting enough book that glides you through the history and culture and Paris during the Belle Epoque. Although it can be both repetitive in parts and its grand scope leave you dizzy from the speed, it’s informative, it’s engaging, and it’s never boring. And I’m sure it gives a great depth and appreciation for Paris (And to some extent its repetitiveness means you can dive into any section in connection to the part of Paris you want to explore without missing out too much). Although given its inclusion of women’s history and other minorities at the time, it would have been good to see an inclusion of LGBT+ history as well and its culture of the time. Something I’d consider a major blind spot of the novel.

[Herb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A most thorough and well-written look at Paris' "Belle Epoque". Not only does the author show the famous elegance and beauty of the era, but he also explores the political divisions, rebellions and sordid demimonde of the city at the time. It includes an excellent analysis of the "Dreyfus Affair"; this alone makes it worth reading. If you're a Francophile or are interested in pre-WWI France, this is a gem. I truly enjoyed it.

[Rachel Ellerbrock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understood why the author included out the addresses of the places where things happened, but as i listened to it it did make me feel lost lol.

I really enjoyed learning about this time period and finding the parallels in todays current events. I would read more from this author.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thorough and clearly well researched look at a complex time in modern history. I wish there had been a deeper dive into the arts of the age, but clearly the politics have greater parallels to our own time. Not always a compelling read, but always an interesting one.

[Michael Barrington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just loved this book.Kine is a historian with the rare ability to engage his reader both at the level of local detail and sweeping narrative. Beautifully written.

[Andre Smiljic]

None

[Yaryna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good, although the second half, while undoubtedly interesting and important, was a bit more difficult to get through.

[Tom Niebergall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and focuses on an error changing part of the globe.