Constructing Paris in the Age of Revolution

The great myth of Baron Haussmann is that 'modernity' began with his monumental reconstructions of Paris in the Second half of the nineteenth century. Constructing Paris in the Age of Revolution argues that 'Haussmannisation before Haussmann' in the late 1700s also made Paris the capital of the eighteenth century. Due to the persistence of the black legend of uninterrupted revolutionary vandalism, few historians have researched the construction of Paris in this period. Yet building represented a core sector of revolutionary urban, social, labour and industrial policy. Allan Potofsky thus rehabilitates its vitality during the Revolution, and -while- architectural and urban historians often treat the history of construction through the careers and tastes of architects and urban planners - his book examines the broader social and political history of workers and entrepreneurs engaged in constructing the French capital in the period 1763 to 1815.

Allan Potofsky is Professor at the Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7. He was awarded a PhD in History from Columbia University, New York, and previously was Associate Professor at the Université Paris 8 (Saint-Denis). His research interests include the history of Paris, the French Revolution, eighteenth-century Atlantic History, France in America and comparative urban history, 1750-1850. He lives in the northeast Parisian quarter of Belleville.