Massacre
The Life and Death of the Paris Commune
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2.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
From a pre-eminent Yale historian comes the first popular history of the 1871 Paris Commune, a seminal episode in modern European history.
The Paris Commune lasted for only 64 days in 1871, but during that short time it gave rise to some of the grandest political dreams of the nineteenth century -- before culminating in horrific violence.
Following the disastrous French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, hungry and politically disenchanted Parisians took up arms against their government in the name of a more just society. They expelled loyalists and soldiers and erected barricades in the streets. In Massacre, John Merriman introduces a cast of inimitable Communards -- from les péoleuses (female incendiaries) to the painter Gustave Courbet -- whose idealism fueled a revolution. And he vividly recreates the Commune's chaotic and bloody end when 30,000 troops stormed the city, burning half of Paris and executing captured Communards en masse.
A stirring evocation of the spring when Paris was ablaze with cannon fire and its citizens were their own masters, Massacre reveals how the indomitable spirit of the Commune shook the very foundations of Europe.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Paris Commune is an event that tends to more referenced than understood, but Yale University historian Merriman (The Dynamite Club) changes that with this harrowing account of its 64 days in 1871. He brings the reader up to speed quickly, from Napoleon III's rule as Emperor to the humiliation of the Franco-Prussian War to the birth of the Commune, when a "spontaneous defense of National Guard cannons had quickly evolved into an insurrection and then a revolution." While post-Napoleon III French leader Adolphe Thiers and French elite holed up at Versailles and plotted the downfall of the Commune, the Communards struggled to adjust to the realities of running Paris. Francois Jourde, one of the Commune's National Committee members, hints at how woefully unprepared the Communards were for governing: "We were very embarrassed by our authority." Merriman's writing is straightforward and unsentimental, and he captures just how fast events transpired in Paris for the Commune up to the Bloody Week, when the Army of Versailles overran Paris and executed between 12,000 and 15,000 Communards. In the aftermath, Thiers and his forces labeled the Communards "wild animals" and worse, but Merriman turns his focus on the longevity of the Commune's ideals: "The Communards may have been mortal, but their cause was not."
Customer Reviews
Book Great, Format Poor
The book, itself, is great. But for some reason, iTunes has the format backwards. It turns left to right…