The Zone: An Alternative History of Paris

AN OUTSIDER’S GUIDE TO MODERN PARIS

In The Zone, Justinien Tribillon takes the reader on a tour of an eponymous Parisian hinterland. The site of dreams and nightmares, from Van Gogh’s paintings to the cinematic violence of La Haine, the Zone, so often misun- derstood, is the key to understanding today’s Paris, and even France itself.

Originally the site of defensive walls, alongside which mushroomed makeshift housing, allotments, and dancehalls in the nineteenth century, the Zone has performe...