A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024
A Waterstones Best History Book of 2024 Pick
'Kuper is a shrewd observer [in] this entertaining mix of memoir and anthropology' The Sunday Times
From the bestselling author of Chums comes an explorer's tale of a naïf getting to understand a complex, glittering, beautiful and often cruel city.
Simon Kuper has experienced Paris both as a human being and as a journalist. He has grown middle-aged there, eaten the croissants, taken his children to countless football matches on freezing Saturday mornings in the city's notorious banlieues, and in 2015 lived through two terrorist attacks on his family's neighbourhood. Over two decades of becoming something of a cantankerous Parisian himself, Kuper has watched the city change.
This century, Paris has globalised, gentrified, and been shocked into realising its role as the crucible of civilisational conflict. Sometimes it's a multicultural paradise, and sometimes it isn't. This decade, Parisians have lived through a sequence of shocks: terrorist attacks, record floods and heatwaves, the burning of Notre Dame, the storming of the city by gilets jaunes, and the pandemic. Now, as the Olympics come to town, France is busy executing the 'Grand Paris' project: the most serious attempt yet to knit together the bejewelled city with its neglected suburbs.
This is a captivating memoir of today's Paris without the clichés.
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
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Information
Subtopic
Social Science BiographiesIndex
HistoryTable of contents
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- The Real Paris
- 1: The Accidental Parisian
- 2: Losing to London: Paris versus the Anglosphere
- 3: Parisian Neighbours
- 4: The Kids Learn Parisian
- 5: The Real Parisian Traffic Code
- 6: The Code-breaking Charlatan
- 7: Neighbourhood Terrorism
- 8: The Refuge
- 9: Paris for Jews
- 10: The Day of the Three Cafés
- 11: The Tiniest Elite
- 12: Who’s for Dinner?
- 13: Macron: The Seducer Who Ate Paris
- 14: How to Become French
- 15: The Suburbs Win the World Cup
- 16: The Revolution Against Paris
- 17: A Sexual Reckoning with 1968
- 18: Paris by Bike
- 19: Luxury City?
- 20: Grand Paris: The Making of a New Metropolis
- 21: The Suburban Olympics
- 22: Death in Paris
- Glossary
- Notes
- Acknowledgements
- Also by Simon Kuper
- Copyright
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Yes, you can access Impossible City by Simon Kuper in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Social Science Biographies. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.