Paris on the brink The 1930s Paris of Jean Renoir, Salvador Dalí, Simone de Beauvoir, André Gide, Sylvia Beach, Léon Blum, and their friends

Mary Sperling McAuliffe, 1943-

Book - 2018

"Vividly portrays the City of Light during the tumultuous 1930s. The decade was marked by violence at home and the rise of Hitler abroad, even as glamour prevailed in fashion and Surrealism sparked new forms of artistic creativity"--

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Subjects
Genres
Biographies
Published
Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield [2018]
Language
English
Main Author
Mary Sperling McAuliffe, 1943- (author)
Physical Description
xii, 359 pages : black and white illustrations, map, portraits ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 299-343) and index.
ISBN
9781538112373
  • List of Illustrations
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Map of Paris
  • Chapter 1. End of an Era (1929)
  • Chapter 2. Rags and Riches (1929)
  • Chapter 3. It Could Never Happen Here (1930)
  • Chapter 4. The Ooh La La Factor (1930)
  • Chapter 5. Navigating a Dangerous World (1931-1932)
  • Chapter 6. Taking Sides (1933)
  • Chapter 7. Bloody Tuesday (1934)
  • Chapter 8. Sailing, Sailing (1935)
  • Chapter 9. Coming Apart (1936)
  • Chapter 10. War in Spain (1936)
  • Chapter 11. End of the Dream (1937)
  • Chapter 12. In War's Shadow (1938)
  • Chapter 13. Dancing on a Volcano (1939)
  • Chapter 14. Closing the Circle (1940)
  • Epilogue
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
  • About the Author
Review by Booklist Review

The October 1929 Wall Street crash generated economic uncertainty throughout the world. Though France tried to inoculate itself from the impending turmoil, its inhabitants, including those working in the arts while residing in Paris, felt the burden of the global crisis. McAuliffe (When Paris Sizzled, 2016) continues her career-defining cultural survey of Paris as the global depression gives rise to fascism and another world war. The legendary troupe of Paris-based artists and writers celebrated in many a book and movie appears here bearing increasingly heavy burdens as the Roaring Twenties fade to a bleaker era. Hemingway is at odds with Fitzgerald, James Joyce struggles to maintain his lavish lifestyle after publishing Ulysses, Gertrude Stein resents the fame of her contemporaries, and Henry Miller rails against grim times with hedonistic ventures. Add the goings-on of the surrealists Salvador Dalí and André Breton, the bookstore (Shakespeare & Co.) owner Sylvia Beach, architect Le Corbusier, and socialist Leon Blum, among many others, and McAuliffe, once again, presents a memorable collage of Parisian legends.--Michael Ruzicka Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In her enlightening cultural history, McAuliffe (Dawn of the Belle Epoque) details the swirling world of art, fashion, literature, and politics of 1930s Paris. Despite the instability of the decade, which ended with German occupation, Paris remained the center of European cultural creativity, and McAuliffe follows the lives of the city's influential people as they negotiated the decade's shifting political and economic sands. In 1929, fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli designed a line of brightly colored clothes, as well as off-the-rack skirts with lower hemlines that would come to define glamour in the decade. A 21-year-old Simone de Beauvoir met and began a relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre just as he was to begin military service. Picasso aligned himself with the Republican cause in Spain, expressing his politics through his art in his painting Guernica, which he unveiled at the 1937 Paris World Fair. By 1939, Jean Renoir had captured the decadence and brutal sadness of the decline of France in his film The Rules of the Game. Meanwhile jazz singer Josephine Baker, living in Paris, helped secure passports for Eastern European Jews seeking refuge in Latin America. With a breathless pace, McAuliffe's richly detailed history wonderfully captures Paris in the 1930s. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved