Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris by Graham Robb
In his 2007 book, The Discovery of France, historian Graham Robb argued that the idea of a homogeneous people called “the French” was a myth carefully constructed to bring political and cultural unity to a “vast encyclopedia of micro-civilizations.” Now, in his new work, Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris, Robb depicts a Paris that is similarly “a composite place built up over the ages, a picture book of superimposed transparencies,” where “even the quietest street is crowded with adventures.”
Robb tells the tale of the city through a parade of key figures, from the infamous (Napoleon,