Paris, Capital of Modernity

Collecting David Harvey's finest work on Paris during the second empire, this volume offers brilliant insights ranging from the birth of consumerist spectacle on the Parisian boulevards, the creative visions of Balzac, Baudelaire, and Zola, and the reactionary cultural politics of the bombastic "Sacre Couer." Illustrated throughout.

Collecting David Harvey's finest work on Paris during the second empire, Paris, Capital of Modernity offers brilliant insights ranging from the birth of consumerist spectacle on the Parisian boulevards, the creative visions of Balzac, Baudelaire and Zola, and the reactionary cultural politics of the bombastic Sacre Couer. The book is heavily illustrated and includes a number drawings, portraits and cartoons by Daumier, one of the greatest political caricaturists of the nineteenth century.

Introduction; Part 1 Representations; Chapter 1 The Myths of Modernity; Chapter 2 Dreaming the Body Politic; Part 2 Materializations; Chapter 3 Prologue; Chapter 4 The Organization of Space Relations; Chapter 5 Money, Credit, and Finance; Chapter 6 Rent and the Propertied Interest; Chapter 7 The State; Chapter 8 Abstract and Concrete Labor; Chapter 9 The Buying and Selling of Labor Power; Chapter 10 The Condition of Women; Chapter 11 The Reproduction of Labor Power; Chapter 12 Consumerism, Spectacle, and Leisure; Chapter 13 Community and Class; Chapter 14 Natural Relations; Chapter 15 Science and Sentiment, Modernity and Tradition; Chapter 16 Rhetoric and Representation; Chapter 17 The Geopolitics of Urban Transformation; Part 3 Coda; Chapter 18 The Building of the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur;

David Harvey is one of the world's leading critical intellectuals. He is the author of 10 books, many of which are classics. He now teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center and the London School of Economics, after many years teaching at Johns Hopkins and Oxford.