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City of Light, City of Shadows: Paris in the Belle Époque
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.
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.
448 pages, Hardcover
Published May 14, 2024
24 people are currently reading
379 people want to read
About the author
Mike Rapport
10 books20 followersMike 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 26, 2024
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.*
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.*
February 23, 2024
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
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
September 27, 2024
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.
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.
August 2, 2024
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.
June 13, 2025
Paris je t’aime
February 19, 2025
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.
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.
April 3, 2024
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.
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.
May 15, 2024
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.
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.
September 28, 2024
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.
January 30, 2025
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.
December 9, 2024
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.
I really enjoyed learning about this time period and finding the parallels in todays current events. I would read more from this author.
May 31, 2025
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.
October 16, 2024
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.
Want to read
January 27, 2025None
September 30, 2025
Pretty good, although the second half, while undoubtedly interesting and important, was a bit more difficult to get through.
December 7, 2025
Well written and focuses on an error changing part of the globe.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews