Paris in the Fifties

Paris in the Fifties
ISBN-10
0812927818
ISBN-13
9780812927818
Category
Social Science / General
Pages
352
Language
English
Published
1997
Publisher
Times Books

Description

In July 1947, fresh out of college and long before he would win the Pulitzer Prize and become known as one of America's finest historians, Stanley Karnow boarded a freighter bound for France, planning to stay for the summer. He stayed for ten years, first as a student and later as a correspondent for Time magazine. By the time he left, Karnow knew Paris so intimately that his French colleagues dubbed him "le plus parisien des Americains" --the most Parisian American. Now, Karnow returns to the France of his youth, perceptively and wittily illuminating a time and place like none other.
Karnow came to France at a time when the French were striving to return to the life they had enjoyed before the devastation of World War II. Yet even during food shortages, political upheavals, and the struggle to come to terms with a world in which France was no longer the mighty power it had been, Paris remained a city of style, passion, and romance. Paris in the Fifties transports us to Latin Quarter cafes and basement jazz clubs, to unheated apartments and glorious ballrooms. We meet such prominent political figures as Charles de Gaulle and Pierre Mendes-France, as well as Communist hacks and the demagogic tax rebel Pierre Poujade. We get to know illustrious intellectuals, among them Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Andre Malraux, and visit the glittering salons where aristocrats with exquisite manners mingled with trendy novelists, poets, critics, artists, composers, playwrights, and actors. We meet Christian Dior, who taught Karnow the secrets of haute couture, and Prince Curnonsky, France's leading gourmet, who taught the young reporter to appreciate the complexities ofhaute cuisine. Karnow takes us to marathon murder trials in musty courtrooms, accompanies a group of tipsy wine connoisseurs on a tour of the Beaujolais vineyards, and recalls the famous automobile race at Le Mans when a catastrophic accident killed more than eighty spectators. Back in Paris, Karnow hung out with visiting celebrities like Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, and Audrey Hepburn, and in Paris in the Fifties we meet them too.
A veteran reporter and historian, Karnow has written a vivid and delightful chronicle of a charmed decade in the greatest city in the world.

Other editions

Similar books

  • Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment
    By Karen Kay Kirst-Ashman, Charles Zastrow

    In this best-selling text BY social workers and FOR social workers, Charles Zastrow and Karen K. Kirst-Ashman, nationally prominent social work educators and authors, guide studetns in assessing and evaluating how individuals function ...

  • War and State Making: The Shaping of the Global Powers
    By Karen A. Rasler, William R. Thompson

    War and State Making: The Shaping of the Global Powers

  • Mapping the Social Landscape: Readings in Sociology
    By Susan J. Ferguson

    Charrière , H. 1969. Papillon . Robert Lafont . ... 6 NOT OUR KIND OF GIRL ELAINE BELL KAPLAN Social research is concerned with the definition and assessment of social phenomena . Many social concepts such as teen pregnancy are ...

  • Body Trauma TV: The New Hospital Dramas
    By Jason Jacobs, Lecturer in Film and Television Studies Jason Jacobs

    A very early example of this is the US single play ' The Hospital where a disturbed porter disrupts the power supply to the hospital . It was a CBS / Studio One production broadcast Doctor : Television , Storytelling and Medical Power ( ...

  • 正義與差異政治
    By 艾莉斯.楊

    ◆1991 年美國政治科學學會 Victoria Schuck 獎 ◆20 世紀最重要的女性主義政治哲學家,《像女孩那樣丟球》作者 Iris Young 代表作 ◆90 年代至今社會運動思想源頭,開創正義理論全新典範 ...

  • 反穀:穀物是食糧還是政權工具?人類為農耕社會付出何種代價?一個政治人類學家對國家形成的反思
    By 詹姆斯.斯科特

    ★當代最重要的政治人類學家詹姆斯.斯科特全新著作。 ★顛覆過往對國家與文明成形基本假設,提出今日國家建立的各種想像。 ...

  • 陇上学人文存.初世宾卷
    By 范鹏, 初世宾, 李勇锋

    陇者甘肃,历史悠久,文化醇厚。陇上学人,或生于斯长于斯的本地学者,或外来而其学术成就多产于甘肃者。学人是学术活动的主体,就《陇上学人文存》(以下简称《文存》)的 ...

  • Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas
    By Karen Kampwirth

    Booth, John. 1985. The End and the Beginning: The Nicaraguan Revolution. Boulder: Westview. Booth, John, and Thomas W. Walker. 1989. Understanding Central America. Boulder: Westview Borge, Tomás. 1984. Carlos, the Dawn Ls No Longer ...

  • 2025: Scenarios of U.S. and Global Society Reshaped by Science and Technology
    By Joseph Francis Coates, John B. Mahaffie, Andy Hines

    Growing global linkages and complexity are redressing the paradox aptly characterized by sociologist Daniel Bell in the last century , “ government is too big for the small problems of our society and too small for the big ones .

  • African American Firsts in Science & Technology
    By Raymond B. Webster

    ... George W. 318 Neal , Lonnie G. 126 , 312 Nickerson , William J. 11 Nokes , Clarence 121 Page , Lionel F. 356 ... Wanda Anne A. 150 Small , Isadore , III 135 Smart , Brinay 106 Smith , Jonathan S. , II 312 Smith , Morris Leslie 312 ...