Blood in the city
Subtitle: violence and revelation in Paris, 1789-1945
By: Richard D.E. Burton.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Ithaca
Language: eng
Number of pages: 395
Subjects: Historic sites -- France -- Paris; Violence -- France -- Paris -- History; Paris (France) -- History -- 1789-1900; Paris (France) -- History -- 20th century
Description: "The terror of 1793-94, the Paris Commune of 1871, the Dreyfus Affair - explosions of violence punctuated French history from the start of the Revolution until the Liberation at the close of World War II. The scholar Richard D. E. Burton here offers an original account of these outbursts, concluding that recourse to political violence was not occasional and abnormal but rather the usual pattern in French history.".

"Instead of adhering to conventional chronological lines, Blood in the City is structured topologically around a number of major Parisian "sites of memory," including Place de la Concorde, Sacre-Coeur, and the Eiffel Tower. For thirty years Burton has visited and revisited Paris, criss-crossing the streets on foot, and lived with great nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary depictions of the city.

Drawing on historical, literary, visual, anthropological, and psychological sources, he develops a wide-ranging account of violence in modern French politics. In so doing, he provides powerful insights into political violence, scapegoating, the idea of sacrifice, and the widespread French obsession with conspiracy."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Paris à vol d'oiseau (1789-1914); title: Violent origins : the taking of the Bastille (July 1789); title: Killing the king : Place de la Révolution/Concorde (21 January 1793); title: Vendôme/Invalides : the Paris of the Bonapartes (1802-1871); title: Heart of the city : Place de Grève/Hôtel de Ville (1789-1871); title: The miraculous medal : Rue du Bac (1830); title: Killing the living, burying the dead : Père-Lachaise (1804-1945); title: Conversion? Paul Claudel at Notre-Dame (Christmas 1886); title: Church prowling : the back-to-front pilgrimage of Joris-Karl Huysmans (1884-1892); title: Marble versus iron : Sacré-Coeur and the Eiffel Tower (1871-1914); title: Operation Spring breeze : Rue des Rosiers, Vel' d'Hiv', Drancy (July-August 1942); title: Purging the city : Paris libre (August 1944-October 1945); title: Conclusion: blood in the city, 1789-1945; title: Sacrificial victims : a chronology.