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Years before winning the Pulitzer Prize for his definitive history of the Vietnam War, Vietnam: A History, Stanley Karnow lived in Paris as a young reporter. The man who was later to be renowned for his thorough research and crisp prose had to begin somewhere, and Karnow had the incredible good fortune to make his way as a foreign correspondent for Time magazine in the 1950s. His original dispatches to Time's New York office make up a majority of Paris in the Fifties.
By simply calling this collection Paris in the Fifties, however, Karnow has done himself a great injustice. His treatise on the City of Light is more a biography of a city and its culture than it is a mere look at a time and place. Ever wonder where the modern-day restaurant had its origin, or what happened to the French aristocracy after the ravages of the Revolution, or even how the French maintain their status at the forefront of culture--be it food, wine, art, or fashion? Karnow provides the answers and then some. His descriptions are as rich as they are comprehensive, all the while depicting how the French savoir vivre--the zest for life that Paris symbolizes for all of us--withstood the horrors of World War II and the destabilization of society as everyone knew it. This wonderful book is reassurance that no matter what modern threats to culture may come, toujours Paris: we'll always have Paris. And that is true comfort to any expatriate at heart. --Courtenay Kehn
From Library Journal
Pulitzer prize-winning author Karnow (Vietnam: A History, LJ 10/1/83) vividly chronicles his early years in Paris, where he worked as a young reporter for Time magazine (1950-59). Displaying a broad knowledge of French history and civilization, Karnow offers anecdotes ranging from a description of the construction of the guillotine to a report of a disastrous automobile crash at the racetrack at Le Mans in 1955. He astutely illustrates the contradictions in the national character?how the French pose as individualistic, honest, open-minded, and tolerant but can be simultaneously extremely conformist, narrowminded, bigoted, and hostile to foreigners. Karnow closes with the collapse of the Fourth Republic in 1958 and the recall to power of Charles de Gaulle. His entertaining book will have enormous appeal to anyone interested in Paris and France, especially those fortunate enough to have lived in that great city in their youth. Highly recommended.?Robert T. Ivey, Univ. of Memphis
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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