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Dawn Of The Belle Epoque: The Paris Of Monet, Zola, Bernhardt, Eiffel, Debussy, Clemenceau, And Their Friends (2011)

by Mary McAuliffe(Favorite Author)

3.9 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1442209275 (ISBN13: 9781442209275)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

review 1: Really wish I would have read the Goodreads user reviews of this book before delving into it. The subject matter of the book was fascinating. However, the writing style was awful. The author follows the lives of 10+ individuals during the span of a decade. Each chapter is a different year and each chapter is divided up into 1-3 page descriptions of what a particular person was doing in that particular year. Right when you start getting interested in that person's story, a new person's story begins. By the time you get to the next chapter, you've forgotten what story belongs with what person and the struggle to get interested again ensues.
review 2: Dawn of the Belle Époque has a cast of hundreds, but because many of them are well known, including Zola, M... moreonet, Marie Curie, Gustave Eiffel, Debussy, and Sarah Bernhardt, it’s not hard to keep track of them. Details of individual lives are reported, I learned for instance that Degas was petulant, conservative and stubborn, but the book also has a broader scope. Almost every year from 1870 to 1900 has its own chapter, covering the politics, personalities, mood and culture of Paris as it moved toward the new century. While some aspects of the Belle Époque were not so belle/beautiful, notably the Dreyfus affair, it’s a fascinating era. A hundred years after the French Revolution, France was still deeply divided. Republican heirs of the revolution clashed with anarchists, and they both brawled, sometimes literally, with citizens who wanted a powerful Catholic Church and a return to rule by the monarchy or an heir of Napoleon. The back of the book has sources notes and a bibliography. less

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