A solid text on the history of modernism that is itself a historical text. A necessity for anyone studying inter-war and post-war culture.

First published in France in 2017, and now translated into English for the first time (the author sadly died in 2020) this is a truly fascinating exploration of the very idea of the Belle Époque and how it has evolved over the decades. Each age seems to imagine, re-imagine and re-interpret the Belle Époque in its own way. The term has been used differently over time and has signified different things. There’s even a lack of consensus about when the Belle Époque actually was. The author looks at how it has been portrayed in literature, art and film and how it has taken such a firm hold in the popular imagination. The book really illuminates not only the Belle Époque, but also French cultural history in general, and will appeal to all those interested in both French history and culture. A stimulating, thought-provoking and accessible work of well-researched scholarship.

This book is less a history of the Belle Époque and more a lengthy rumination on how the term came to exist, which is a shame, because the former would likely have made for a compelling read.

While there’s some interesting aspects to how the term arose and why it was applied retroactively in an idealistic and romanticized manner. that isn’t really a subject worthy of an entire book, which I can say with certainty now that I’ve slogged through an entire book about it.

Better would have been a history of the Belle Époque with a section on the topic of how it came to be viewed with rose colored glasses retroactively.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. An interesting novel. If you love history you might want to check this book out. Cover is beautiful

RIP to the author, Dominique Kalifa, who passed away in 2020. This book was translated by Susan Emanuel.

The author deconstructs just what the term Belle Époque has meant through the years--it wasn't something people used at the time, but rather a later appellation that has been stuck to many cultural phenomena. It's doubly interesting--not only were so many amazing creative feats occurring in the same general time and place, but also it provides a study in how people draw lines around cultural movements and give them names.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

An interesting look into the culture and arts scene in Paris during the Belle Epoche

A bit bland at times but a great resource.

Gorgeous cover

La Belle Epoque conjures visions of the Cancan, the Moulin Rouge, Toulouse-Lautrec. How did this particular set of images get so entrenched in the popular imagination when it comes to the time period, and how does the time period continue to exert such a hold on the popular imagination? In this book, Dominique Kalifa tries to answer these questions-how is the Belle Epoque defined in popular culture, what are attitudes towards it, and how did those attitudes solidify, with that particular time period being considered a Golden Age of art, culture, and glamour, where everything was possible if you were young in Paris? To explore this, the book is a painstaking consideration of art, cinema, literature and news reports of the time, and subsequent years. Kalifa starts with an analysis of how the Belle Epoque was depicted by contemporaneous chroniclers and he draws a fascinating connection between Henri Bergson's ideas on capturing time as a sequence of memories rather than hours in a day, to Proust's writings on nostalgia. Kalifa traces the romanticisation of the time, to the Nazi Occupation-most performances allowed in theatres were 'period pieces', that used dramas and music pre-World War I, a time now mentally associated with a French Empire, hedonism and Paris as the creative capital of the world. Kalifa tries to show that the many sides to the Belle Epoque, of glaring inequities and economic deprivation from the Franco-Prussian War, were hidden to divert a populace trying to survive rationing and Occupation. After the Liberation of Paris, given that most of the music and theatre of the period that people were exposed to were from the Belle Epoque, it became associated with a spirit of resistance and defiance to the Occupying Nazis ( Maurice Chevalier, a star during the Belle Epoque , was literally involved with the French Resistance). It was a time not tainted by accusations of collaboration, and was valorised in the popular imagination. I particularly loved Kalifa's chapter on cinema engaging with the time-I didn't know, for instance, that post World War II, nearly 1 every 5 movies made was set in the Belle Epoque, with every famous director making one. This selective representation of one particular facet of the same particular time period annoyed a bunch of young critics so much that they wrote multiple articles against it in Cahiers du Cinema, leading to the Nouvelle Vague. Truffaut, among those vocal critics, wanted to deconstruct the 'Maxim's and Moulin ROuge' façade of the Belle Epoque, and Jules et Jim starts in that time period, but the movie couldn't be more different from other nostalgic period pieces. Another film-maker Rene Clair, sent up Golden Age nostalgia, in a movie called 'Les belles de nuit", where the protagonist travels through time every night in his dreams, seeking happiness in one epoch after another , before realising that there really never was a perfect Golden Age.
This erudite book is a compelling way to interogate our ways of seeing the past, and how those can affect our outlook on the future. That Kalifa manages to tackle the weighty themes of a nation's self-image and the various ways media interact to describe the past, while also being a treasure trove of literature and film recommendations, is a huge achievement. This is a fascinating book, that deserves to be read and savoured slowly, multiple times.

This is not so much a book about that period between around 1900 and the beginning of the First World that is remembered as the Belle Epoque, but a book about how it came to be remembered as such.

It's genuinely very interesting--beginning with an introduction that discusses how hazy people in France in the 21st century often are on what, exactly, constitutes the Belle Epoque (it frequently gets muddled into the 1920s, despite the intervening war), it progresses through the first applications of the term to describe the period around 1900 and how it gained increasing cultural relevance in WWII-era nostalgia for an apparently simpler past.

I did not find myself wondering about the quality of the translation at any point, which is always a good sign, and for the most part I don't think the reader needs any special knowledge of 20th century French history beyond a general familiarity with European history as a whole to appreciate it. It is likely to appeal most to readers who have some casual interest in historiography and cultural memory, though, because to the reader expecting a portrait of the 1900-1913 era itself, it really isn't that.

Would you like to go back to the Belle Époque in Paris? Practically everyone would! It is seen as a glittering age of dining at Maxim's, the Can-Can at the Moulin Rouge, Impressionist paintings, boating on the Seine. People enjoyed themselves without cares in this golden era before the First World War. Was it really like this? When did it start to be seen like this?

The distinguished historian Kalifa studies how each age has seen this era in this insightful and extremely detailed book. Surprisingly, although most people think that people looked back to this happy time in the '20s, this is not true! It only began to be regarded as a distinct era in the 1930s, and it wasn't really until after World War Two that it became a part of cultural history fueled by nostalgia and longing for a better time.

Kalifa studies the memoirs, films and books about the era in each age, and how we are constantly reaching a better understanding of it. For example, in the 1960s and '70s, historians started to look at the shadowy side of the era - the poverty, gangs, and sex workers, for example. Recently, there has been a focus on collecting vintage items, and preserving cultural heritage.

It is an extremely interesting book, but probably more enjoyable for those who make a study of French history.

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Rather than a history of the era itself, this book is about the term “The Belle Époque”. What does it actually mean and represent, how it came to be used (as at the time itself, of course, nobody used that phrase),and changed across time. So it’s an interesting social history and covers art, literature and the performing arts, film, music, historians etc.
It’s such a big subject done like this and theres lots of interesting information presented.

What a terrible pity this scholar died so young. This is a very thoughtful, interesting work of historiography: Kalifa examines how the concept of the ‘Belle Époque’ evolved. It was not, as he notes, used at the time; it dates in part to the interwar period (which is also, as he observes, a later label and not used at the time) but took on particular resonance during the Second World War. This is an interesting look at the way our conceptions of eras change, congeal, and become repurposed for the needs of the present moment, and Kalifa’s study is wide-ranging and thoughtful. What do we mean by a ‘belle epoque’, after all? Belle to whose eyes? Has the meaning stayed the same, and does it conjure the same era today? His survey of contemporary Parisians suggests not; that the idea of a golden age has shifted forward.

I’ve always loved Paris and specially the Belle Epoque. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the definition that I had in my head for it was mostly correct. What was unexpected was to learn how there isn’t one Belle Epoque, but that its definition can and has varied through time. The author does a great job of explaining the historical context and cultural significance. How it influenced literature, visual arts and even other countries. How it’s been depicted in film and how many different people have been influenced by it. Reading the excepts of writings from the era, feels like traveling through time. This is not only big History, but small histories. How people lived their daily lives. Some parts were a little dry for my taste, since I’m no historian, but mostly this was a fun book to read.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Columbia University Press!

The Belle Époque is not, strictly speaking, a history book. While historic events are presented, Dominique Kalifa analyzes these events, the effect they might have had on society, and how they are treated and remembered (or misremembered) today. Kalifa posited that The Belle Époque has been romanticized to the point of almost being a work of fiction- the wishes of returning to "the good ol' days", which upon further reflection weren't so good after all.

Note that the years discussed include 1900-1914, which is a smaller slice of history than what other historians might designate as The Belle Époque, which may be as long as the years between 1871 through 1914. However, the shorter period is also one being researched by historians elsewhere, as for many in Western Europe and North America, this was a time without wars or bank panics, where it appeared that the good times and progress (progress being one area Kalifa expounds upon) would go on forever.

If there is a flaw in this work, it's that at times Kalifa attempts to counter every question or counter-argument that might be made which leads the reader to wonder why given the argument has been made and supported, did Kalifa feel it required so much proof. However, this is a minor fault and doesn't detract from the scope and strength of the overall analysis.

This was an interesting book about one of my favorite periods of history, and seeing how it came by its name and the years by which the era was basically defined was intriguing. However, the book's editing--I realize it was likely due to being an ARC and not the final editing--was terrible, with literally hundreds of errors, which really took away from my overall enjoyment of this book, which was a shame, considering it was the author's final publication.

If you grab this book without reading the back blurb you might end up being surprised because this isn’t a history about the time period we now call the Belle Epoque but rather about when the idea of calling 1900-1914 in France, particularly Paris, came to be, why, and the connotations and interpretations of those times reflecting back on the Belle Epoque. So if you are interested in intellectual history, this book is for you. It is well written and researched. I think that sometimes there is too much evidence used to back up a particular argument—some parts go on a little too long—but it is well put together. It is interesting to see how the ideas about the Belle Epoque changed and what different time periods got out of it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for an advanced copy of this new history book.

The late Dominique Kalifa's last book, The Belle Époque: A Cultural History, Paris and Beyond, translated by Susan Emanuel, seems to be at first glance a history of this storied time in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It is not. This book is more of an exploration and explanation of how a time and an era can be created in a present that seems darker, about a time where the arts, the people, even the cities of France seemed brighter and more alive.

Starting from where the term 'Belle Époque' even originated Kalifa flashes through time from years before the start of the century to well after World War I. Memory plays apart, what was real and what was good at the time, to what the War left France as, weakened and unsure of its place in the world. A familiarity with the history is helpful, but still this is a very interesting, book, about a time that seemed so gleaming, but might only have existed in nostalgia.

A very informative and entertaining read!! Definitely recommend for anyone wanting to learn more about the wonderful city of Paris and its stunning culture!

You wouldn’t find this book even if you’d google it. Unless you know the authors name by heart. But we should find it, it’s an interesting book to read.

Very excellent and in-depth descriptions of what the Belle Epoque was, what characters were in it and why it developed. Very detailed. It helps to have been to Paris so that the areas discussed come to mind. But the writer does a good job of bringing the city to the reader.
Throughout the read I always had the semi uncomfortable feeling that I was hovering above the activity, though. I never really felt involved, like I was THERE, the way one would in reading a good biography. I think this should have been the biography of an era so that one does not feel outside the action so much. Overall it is a very well done piece and if you want to get an idea of what the Belle Epoque was, this will be a good source.

With The Belle Epoque the late Dominique Kalifa gave us a magnificent and very detailed portrait of France and its civilization from the tail-end of the 19th century to the beginning of WWI.

From its artistic avant gardes to its fledgling technological progresses (electricity, automobiles, filmmaking,..etc.) Kalifa covers all the significant changes that profoundly altered all aspects of French society during the optimistic and peaceful years leading to the Grande Guerre. But it's when the author starts to explain the notion of Belle Epoque and how it came to be used almost 20 years later that the book becomes really fascinating. It was in 1940 on Radio Paris that it was heard in France for the first time after the Germans had started to occupy the country. Kalifa explains with brio how the expression came to represent a longing for better times, times unfortunately gone, for a humiliated nation in "search of lost time" a nation looking back longingly and nostalgically at 15 years of peace, optimism and joie de vivre, and how la Belle Epoque and its images have influenced us overhere in France ever since.
On a more personal level, I remembered while reading this captivating and very engrossing book that back in the late 70s I actually got into trouble in high school with one history professor because I couldn't conciliate Belle Epoque and Affaire Dreyfuss. La Belle wasn't so beautiful after all.....Mais ça c'est une autre histoire...


Kudos to Ms. Susan Emanuel for her wonderful translation and many thanks to Netgalley and Columbia University Press for the opportunity to read this wonderful book