Sign-In
Cart
How Paris Made the Revolution and the Revolution Made Paris: From France's Royal City to B
Hardcover
FranceFrench HistorySocial Movements
Publisher: Iskra Books
Published: Jul 11 2025
Pages: 344
Weight: 1.20
Height: 0.94 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
How Paris Made the Revolution and the Revolution Made Paris offers a lucid, street-level account of how the French capital and its people forged one another across a hundred turbulent years. Historian Jacques R. Pauwels traces four great upheavals-1789-99, 1830, 1848, and the Paris Commune of 1871-revealing how artisans, workers, and sans-culottes first shattered royal power and later clashed with a rising bourgeois order intent on remaking the city in its own image. Each chapter pairs concise narrative with a guided itinerary, allowing readers to walk from Versailles to the Bastille, the Hôtel de Ville, and the invisible Paris of vanished alleys and barricades while grasping the class forces that animated those spaces.
Pauwels argues that Paris did more than host revolution: its geography, policing, and architecture actively produced and contained revolt, culminating in Baron Haussmann's boulevards-celebrated as modern progress yet engineered to prevent future insurrections. Along the way, he revisits classic questions-why 1789 turned radical, how 1848 gave way to empire, why the Commune still matters-always anchoring analysis in the lived experience of ordinary Parisians and the global currents of anti-imperialist struggle.
Ideal for scholars, students, radical tourists, and general readers alike, How Paris Made the Revolution re-centers the city's history on the working classes who built-and repeatedly tried to reclaim-the bourgeois Babylon. It reminds us that the stones of Paris still echo with the promise that another city, and another world, remain possible.
1 different editions
Also available
Also from
Pauwels, Jacques R.
Myths of Modern History: From the French Revolution to the 20th Century World Wars and the Cold War - New Perspectives on Key Events
Pauwels, Jacques R.
Paperback
Also in
French History
Art of the Defeat: France 1940-1944
Laurence Bertrand Dorleac (author)
Jane Marie Todd (translator)
Hardcover
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Paperback
The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland
Young, Michelle
Hardcover
Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure
Kladstrup, Donald
Kladstrup, Petie
Paperback
The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Paperback
The Dark Side of France: A History of the French Far Right from the 1890s to the Present
O'Doherty, Enda
Hardcover
The First Emancipation: The Forgotten History of Abolition in Revolutionary France
Popkin, Jeremy D.
Hardcover
Josephine Baker's Secret War: The African American Star Who Fought for France and Freedom
Diamond, Hanna
Hardcover
Beyond the Ocean: France and the Atlantic World from the Crusades to the Age of Revolutions
Hodson, Christopher
Rushforth, Brett
Hardcover
A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France
Moorehead, Caroline
Paperback
A Bite-Sized History of France: Gastronomic Tales of Revolution, War, and Enlightenment
Hénaut, Stéphane
Mitchell, Jeni
Paperback
The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland
Young, Michelle
Paperback
The Last Empress of France: The Rebellious Life of Eugénie de Montijo
Resnick, Evelyne
Kladstrup, Petie
Hardcover
The People's Justice: Revolutionary Law and the Founding of the French Republic
Hesse, Carla
Hardcover
The Leopard in the Garden: Animal and Human Lives in Paris at the First Public Zoo of the Modern Era
Burkhardt, Richard W., Jr.
Hardcover
The Napoleonic Wars: An Enthralling Guide to Global Conflict, Revolutionary Tactics, and the Empire's Expansion
Wellman, Billy
Hardcover
And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II
Lusseyran, Jacques
Paperback
From Occupation to Integration: Recivilizing the French Zone of Post-Nazi Germany, 1945-1955
Flanagan, Drew
Hardcover
Passionate Minds: Emilie du Chatelet, Voltaire, and the Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment
Bodanis, David
Paperback
Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie de la Tour Du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era
Moorehead, Caroline
Paperback
The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It
Bell, David A.
Paperback
Devil's Guard: The Fascinating, True Story of the French Foreign Legion's Nazi Battalion
Elford, George R.
Paperback
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918
Barthas, Louis
Paperback
Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris; June 6 - Aug. 5, 1944; Revised
Keegan, John
Paperback
Who Will Rescue Us?: The Story of the Jewish Children Who Fled to France and America During the Holocaust
Hobson Faure, Laura
Hardcover
Fashion Victims: Dress at the Court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette
Chrisman-Campbell, Kimberly
Paperback
From Ancient Gaul to Canada: A Trip Through the Enchanting History of French Canadians
Kish, Dennis
Paperback
The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon
Whitaker, Robert
Paperback
City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris
Tucker, Holly
Paperback
The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940
Shirer, William L.
Paperback
Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812: Complete and Unabridged (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition)
Bonaparte, Napoleon
Paperback
The Story of Modern France: The Kings, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the Establishment of Democracy and Liberty
Guerber, Hélène Adeline
Paperback
A Good Place to Hide: How One French Community Saved Thousands of Lives in World War II
Grose, Peter
Paperback
A Protestant Air: Gide, Sartre, Barthes, and the Religion of Literary Modernity
Fauré-Bellaïche, Clémentine
Paperback
Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People
Herring, Emily
Hardcover
Matriarchal Societies of the Past and the Rise of Patriarchy: West Asia and Europe
Goettner-Abendroth, Heide
Hardcover
When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944
Rosbottom, Ronald C.
Paperback
A Life of Her Own: The Transformation of a Countrywoman in 20th-Century France
Carles, Emilie
Destanque, Robert
Paperback
French Revolution: A Captivating Guide to the French Revolution, the Life of Marie Antoinette and the Impact Made by Napoleon Bonaparte
History, Captivating
Hardcover