The Belle Époque

A Cultural History, Paris and Beyond

Dominique Kalifa, Susan Emanuel

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English

Columbia University Press
06 July 2021

Series: European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism

"The years before the First World War have long been romanticized as a zenith of French culture-the ""Belle Époque."" The era is seen as the height of a lost way of life that remains emblematic of what it means to be French. In a vast range of texts and images, it appears as a carefree time full of joie de vivre, fanfare and frills, artistic daring, and scientific innovation. The Moulin Rouge shared the stage with the Universal Exposition, Toulouse-Lautrec rubbed elbows with Marie Curie and La Belle Otero, and Fantômas invented automatic writing.

This book traces the making-and the imagining-of the Belle Époque to reveal how and why it became a cultural myth. Dominique Kalifa lifts the veil on a period shrouded in nostalgia, explaining the century-long need to continuously reinvent and even sanctify this moment. He sifts through images handed down in memoirs and reminiscences, literature and film, art and history to explore the many facets of the era, including its worldwide reception. The Belle Époque was born in France, but it quickly went global as other countries adopted the concept to write their own histories. In shedding light on how the Belle Époque has been celebrated and reimagined, Kalifa also offers a nuanced meditation on time, history, and memory."

By: Dominique Kalifa
Translated by: Susan Emanuel
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780231202091
ISBN 10: 0231202091
Series: European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 06 July 2021
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Prologue: Time Regained Part I: “The 1900 Époque” Dawn of the Century Time in Flight “Nothing mattered as long as we were dancing” The Invention of “1900” Part II: Ah! la Belle Époque! Occupied Paris, “Belle Époque” Paris? Liberated Paris, Belle Époque Paris A Lively Mid-Century Part III: The Ordeal of the “Fin de Siècle” The “Belle Époque” Isn’t What It Used to Be All of France in the Belle Époque A Very Broad “Belle Époque” Everything Is Cultural in the Era of the Vintage Epilogue: Tangled Times Postscript: The Belle Époque and the Gilded Age, by Venita Datta Notes Bibliography Index

Dominique Kalifa (1957-2020) was professor of history and director of the Center for Nineteenth-Century History at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne. His books include Vice, Crime, and Poverty: How the Western Imagination Invented the Underworld (Columbia, 2019). Venita Datta is professor of French at Wellesley College.

Reviews for The Belle Époque: A Cultural History, Paris and Beyond

Dominique Kalifa's untold history of the Belle Epoque offers a probing reflection on the concepts through which we structure and give meaning to time and the past. Scholars of memory, nostalgia, and temporality will find much to think about in a book that is at once playful and ambitious. -- Stephane Gerson, author of Disaster Falls: A Family Story In this important book, Dominique Kalifa convincingly demonstrates that the notion of the Belle Epoque was not constructed in the years that followed the supreme catastrophe of World War I, but rather in the 1950s, during the Thirty Glorious Years when the new France emerged. This fascinating study has much to tell Anglophone readers about the France that the British and Americans began to discover in the wake of World War II. -- John Merriman, author of Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits: The Crime Spree That Gripped Belle Epoque Paris Kalifa masterfully unearths the varied uses to which the term 'Belle Epoque' has been put from the turn of the twentieth century forward. Part historical excavation, part meditation on the historian's craft, this book makes a crucial contribution to the history of this important period and its afterlives. -- Willa Z. Silverman, author of The New Bibliopolis: French Book Collectors and the Culture of Print, 1880-1914 American readers, especially those who came of age after World War II, will quickly call up Toulouse-Lautrec posters on their walls and memories of first touring Paris. Kalifa gives those memories historical footings and explains their origins, providing a useful, informative portrait for scholars and Francophiles alike. * Kirkus Reviews *