Twilight of the Belle Epoque: The Paris of Picasso, Stravinsky, Proust, Renault, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, and Their Friends through the Great War
In her prior work, Dawn of the Belle Epoque (2011), historian McAuliffe recounted how Paris, reeling from the disasters of the ­Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, reemerged as the glittering cultural center of Europe in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. During the so-called belle epoque, art, literature, and science bloomed in a creative outburst, led by a cast of innovative geniuses, including Zola, Monet, Rodin, and Renoir. In her follow-up, McAuliffe covers the period from 1900 to 1918. The cast of characters as well as the political and social milieu have changed somewhat, but cultural, scientific, and technological creativity continued to flourish. But as McAuliffe indicates, the epoch had its dark side, including the ongoing and increasingly vicious battles between monarchists and republicans, and Catholics versus secularists. The more prescient observers were haunted by the looming threat of a general European war. This is a fine tribute to an amazingly productive period in Parisian and world history. --Jay Freeman