Paris The Biography of a City

The Roman Emperor Julian praised it for its wine. Ernest Hemingway thrived in its seductive bohemia. We know it fondly as the "city of light." For two thousand years Paris has been a perennial source of fascination, a city that has endured Viking invasion, the Black Death, and Nazi occupation to emerge as the heart of a resurgent Europe. Colin Jones goes off the beaten track to capture Paris's evolution from Stone Age settlement to prosperous contemporary capital. Lavishly illustrated, with sidebars that offer an in-depth look at subjects like the catacombs, Victor Hugo, and the Eiffel Tower, this is the ultimate narrative of Paris's epic past from one of the city's foremost historians. Book jacket.

Colin Jones is professor of history at the University of Warwick and the author of several works of history, including The Longman Companion to the French Revolution and The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon