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HAUSSMANN

Name: HAUSSMANN
Author: Michel Carmona
ISBN: 1-56663-427-X

HIS LIFE AND TIMES, AND THE MAKING OF MODERN PARIS

by Michel Carmona & translated by Patrick Camiller ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 24, 2002

Of much interest to students of urban planning and modern European history.

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A plodding but useful life of a man well known to French readers as the architect behind the great plazas, parks, and avenues of Paris.

Georges Eugène Haussmann (1809–91) didn’t come up with the ambitious 19th-century plan that leveled medieval Paris and put in its place the spacious metropolis familiar to moderns; the credit for that wholesale remaking belongs to Napoleon III, the real hero of this long narrative. But, writes Carmona (History/Sorbonne), Haussmann had the steely will such work required: “authoritarian, pragmatic, and efficient, he was concerned that there should be order in all things.” And never mind the cost; he was so committed to the emperor’s vision of a modern city free of choleric swamps and congested alleys that he tore down his childhood home without a second thought. Haussmann emerges here as a type familiar to any visitor to France: the consummate bureaucrat, convinced of the virtues of central authority, planning, reports—and, of course, of the righteousness of his ways. This self-confident vision formed early on, his biographer asserts, and owes much to an offhand remark Haussmann’s grandfather once made to him: “We don’t know well enough how many resources France contains and how rich and powerful it would become if it were well governed—above all, well administered.” Haussmann filled the bill, ably overseeing the complex and at the time highly controversial work of resettling tens of thousands of people so that such marvels as the Place de la Concorde, Place du Trocadéro, and Champs Elysées could be built. Though Carmona’s narrative lacks the human interest of Robert Caro’s life of Robert Moses, the urban leveler and creator to whom Haussmann is often compared, it capably depicts the man and his time.

Of much interest to students of urban planning and modern European history.

Pub Date: May 24, 2002

ISBN: 1-56663-427-X

Page Count: 480

Publisher: Ivan Dee/Rowman & Littlefield

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.