A Walk through Paris

by Eric Hazan, David Fernbach (Translator)

Overview

A walker’s guide to Paris, taking us through its past, present and possible futures

Eric Hazan, author of the acclaimed Invention of Paris, takes the reader on a walk from Ivry to Saint-Denis, roughly following the meridian that divides Paris into east and west, and passing such familiar landmarks as the Luxembourg Gardens, the Pompidou Centre, the Gare du Nord and Montmartre, as well as forgotten alleyways and arcades. Weaving historical anecdotes, geographical observations, and literary references, Hazan’s walk guides us through an unknown Paris. With the aid of maps, he delineates the most fascinating and forgotten parts of the city’s past and present.

Planning and modernization have accelerated the erasure of its revolutionary history, yet through walking and observation, Hazan shows how we can regain our knowledge of the city of Robespierre, the Commune, Sartre, and the May ’68 uprising.

Drawing on his own life story, as surgeon, publisher and social critic, Hazan vividly illustrates the interplay and concord between a city and the personality it forms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786632586
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	03/27/2018
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	829,443
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Eric Hazan is the founder of the publisher La Fabrique and the author of several books, including the highly acclaimed The Invention of Paris. He has lived in Paris, France, all his life.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

1 From the centre of Ivry to the 'Barrière d'Italie', via the Porte d'lvry and the Avenue de Choisy 1

2 From the Place d'Italie to the 85 bus terminus via the Place Denfert-Rochereau 15

3 From the Luxembourg garden to Les Halles via the Pont-Neuf 49

4 From Châtelet to Beaubourg via the battlefield of Saint-Méry 75

5 From the Rue Quincampoix to the Strasbourg-Saint-Denis crossroads via the Rue Saint-Denis 91

6 From the Porte Saint-Denis to the Place de la Chapelle via the Faubourg Saint-Denis and the Gare du Nord 115

7 From La Chapelle-Saint-Denis to the Porte de la Chapelle via three different itineraries; the Rue Marx-Dormoy/Rue de la Chapelle axis, La Goutte-d'Or, Rue Pajol and Rue de l'Évangile 139

8 From the Boulevard Ney to Saint-Denis along the AI autoroute 165

Notes 179

Index 185

Editorial Reviews

To walk through Paris with Hazan is to be accompanied by a wise octogenarian who has absorbed the great city not only through his eyes and soles but through a close study of its literature and history…Even for those who know Paris well, this is an advanced and granular view. In Fernbach's translation, Hazan…comes across as a highly cultured, bemusedly cranky old radical whose eloquence can change how you see…In short: Follow him.

The New York Times Book Review - Christine Muhlke

This is not a guidebook … [Hasan] sees the beauty, of course, and sniffs at some recent attempts at ‘architecture,’ but he’s most dedicated to uncovering the spots where revolutionary blood has been scrubbed from the cornerstones of pre- and post-Haussmannian buildings—the spirit of revolt the city’s planners still try to keep at bay.” —New York Times

“Eric Hazan’s elegant, characteristically learned account of his journey through contemporary Paris, written in a tone both intimate and authoritative, is at once a companionably unhurried evocation of the city’s rich, radical past and—at a time when capital is dramatically reorganizing its topography—a bracingly urgent intervention in debates about the city’s future. As André Breton might have observed, there really are no lost steps here.”
—Matthew Beaumont, author of Nightwalking

“An ardent student of the anatomy of the city, Hazan is a keen observer with a remarkable memory: despite his limitations, he has written an unmissable account of Paris’s unique and defiant physiognomy.”
—Lauren Elkin, Guardian

“In tracing a continuity of resistance and its presence within the contradictions of the contemporary city, Hazan makes a compelling argument that ‘the people have not lost the battle of Paris’ … This book similarly brings the solitary act of reading and the social experience of urban life into constant dialogue. Passages from Balzac, Baudelaire and André Breton come to mind at different street corners, verbal illuminations reflecting the ambience of a particular locale. In these enlightened pages, Hazan deftly guides the reader through a Paris where history and literature animate the lived experience of the present.”
—Eugene Brennan, Washington Post

“Hazan is much concernced with riot, insurrection, protest, and revolution. He is, naturally, on the side of the proletariat … A Walk Through Paris is sometimes a work of urbanism, sometimes a subversive history book, sometimes a kind of tourist guide.”

—Geoff Nicholson, Los Angeles Review of Books

From the Publisher