Paris

Paris is the capital city of France and center of the Île-de-France region, Europe’s second-largest urban agglomeration. Paris is a globally important hub for finance, education, culture, and the arts, and by some measures it is the world’s most visited international tourist destination. The city’s importance for the field of urban studies is due primarily to (a) its present significance as a global city, and, to a greater extent, (b) its historical importance as a place where a particular version of modernity emerged that, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, would heavily influence the design and cultural landscapes of cities around the world. For this reason, the urban history of Paris exerts a broad influence in the fields of planning, geography, and architectural history, as well as in public health, the history of science and technology, art history, and literature. Indeed, research on Paris stands out among other cities for the degree to which scholars in the humanities have sought to engage with urban issues. This is due to the fact that a large proportion of the artistic and cultural output associated with Paris ruminates about the nature of urban life itself. This bibliography has been written for a broad Anglophone readership; it therefore privileges scholarship in English. English translations of important French works have been supplied wherever possible. However, in an effort to balance accessibility with rigor, some French-language scholarship is included as well. In several cases, English-language publications by prominent French scholars have been supplied that may not be the best representation of these scholars’ work, but such citations will nevertheless serve to introduce these important figures to an Anglophone audience. Readers should be warned that the small number of French-language citations included here are far from comprehensive, and are primarily intended to round out the bibliography for those Anglophone scholars who read French. The bibliography is organized under the three broad headings: Historicizing Modernity, Linking Past and Present, and Contemporary Paris. The logic for this structure is based on that notion that distinguishing between urban history and contemporary urban studies will be convenient for many readers. However, some of the best work on Paris combines past and present, and a great deal of contemporary work is most engaging when placed in dialogue with the city’s history, and vice versa.