Bright Boulevards Bold Dreams

Download Bright Boulevards Bold Dreams full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Bright Boulevards Bold Dreams ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams

Author : Donald Bogle
Publisher : One World
ISBN 13 : 0307514935
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (75 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams by : Donald Bogle

Download or read book Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams written by Donald Bogle and published by One World. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, Donald Bogle tells–for the first time–the story of a place both mythic and real: Black Hollywood. Spanning sixty years, this deliciously entertaining history uncovers the audacious manner in which many blacks made a place for themselves in an industry that originally had no place for them. Through interviews and the personal recollections of Hollywood luminaries, Bogle pieces together a remarkable history that remains largely obscure to this day. We discover that Black Hollywood was a place distinct from the studio-system-dominated Tinseltown–a world unto itself, with unique rules and social hierarchy. It had its own talent scouts and media, its own watering holes, elegant hotels, and fashionable nightspots, and of course its own glamorous and brilliant personalities. Along with famous actors including Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Hattie McDaniel (whose home was among Hollywood’s most exquisite), and, later, the stunningly beautiful Lena Horne and the fabulously gifted Sammy Davis, Jr., we meet the likes of heartthrob James Edwards, whose promising career was derailed by whispers of an affair with Lana Turner, and the mysterious Madame Sul-Te-Wan, who shared a close lifelong friendship with pioneering director D. W. Griffith. But Bogle also looks at other members of the black community–from the white stars’ black servants, who had their own money and prestige, to gossip columnists, hairstylists, and architects–and at the world that grew up around them along Central Avenue, the Harlem of the West. In the tradition of Hortense Powdermaker’s classic Hollywood: The Dream Factory and Neal Gabler’s An Empire of Their Own, in Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, Donald Bogle re-creates a vanished world that left an indelible mark on Hollywood–and on all of America.

Hollywood Black

Author : Donald Bogle
Publisher : Running Press Adult
ISBN 13 : 076249140X
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (624 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Hollywood Black by : Donald Bogle

Download or read book Hollywood Black written by Donald Bogle and published by Running Press Adult. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The films, the stars, the filmmakers-all get their due in Hollywood Black, a sweeping overview of blacks in film from the silent era through Black Panther, with striking photos and an engrossing history by award-winning author Donald Bogle. The story opens in the silent film era, when white actors in blackface often played black characters, but also saw the rise of independent African American filmmakers, including the remarkable Oscar Micheaux. It follows the changes in the film industry with the arrival of sound motion pictures and the Great Depression, when black performers such as Stepin Fetchit and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson began finding a place in Hollywood. More often than not, they were saddled with rigidly stereotyped roles, but some gifted performers, most notably Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind (1939), were able to turn in significant performances. In the coming decades, more black talents would light up the screen. Dorothy Dandridge became the first African American to earn a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Carmen Jones (1954), and Sidney Poitier broke ground in films like The Defiant Ones and1963's Lilies of the Field. Hollywood Black reveals the changes in images that came about with the evolving social and political atmosphere of the US, from the Civil Rights era to the Black Power movement. The story takes readers through Blaxploitation, with movies like Shaft and Super Fly, to the emergence of such stars as Cicely Tyson, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and Whoopi Goldberg, and of directors Spike Lee and John Singleton. The history comes into the new millennium with filmmakers Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), Ava Du Vernay (Selma),and Ryan Coogler (Black Panther); megastars such as Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Morgan Freeman; as well as Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Viola Davis, and a glorious gallery of others. Filled with evocative photographs and stories of stars and filmmakers on set and off, Hollywood Black tells an underappreciated history as it's never before been told.

Dorothy Dandridge

Author : Donald Bogle
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0063209314
Total Pages : 752 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (632 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Dorothy Dandridge by : Donald Bogle

Download or read book Dorothy Dandridge written by Donald Bogle and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 752 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available once again, the definitive biography of the pioneering Black performer—the first nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award—who broke new ground in Hollywood and helped transform American society in the years before Civil Rights movement—a remarkable woman of her time who also transcended it. “An ambitious, rigorously researched account of the long-ignored film star and chanteuse. . . . Bogle has fashioned a resonant history of a bygone era in Hollywood and passionately documented the contribution of one of its most dazzling and complex performers."—New York Times Book Review In the segregated world of 1950s America, few celebrities were as talented, beautiful, glamorous, and ultimately influential as Dorothy Dandridge. Universally admired, she was Hollywood's first full-fledged Black movie star. Film historian Donald Bogle offers a panoramic portrait of Dorothy Dandridge’s extraordinary and ultimately tragic life and career, from her early years as a child performer in Cleveland, to her rise as a nightclub headliner and movie star, to her heartbreaking death at 42. Bogle reveals how this exceptionally talented and intensely ambitious entertainer broke down racial barriers by integrating some of America's hottest nightclubs and broke through Tinseltown’s glass ceiling. Along with her smash appearances at venues such as Harlem’s famed Cotton Club, Dorothy starred in numerous films, making history with her role in Otto Preminger’s Carmen Jones, playing opposite Harry Belafonte. Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress—the first Oscar nod for a woman of color. But Dorothy’s wealth, fame, and success masked a reality fraught with contradiction and illusion. Struggling to find good roles professionally, uncomfortable with her image as a sex goddess, coping with the aftermath of two unhappy marriages and a string of unfulfilling affairs, and overwhelmed with guilt for her disabled daughter, Dorothy found herself emotionally and financially bankrupt—despair that ended in her untimely death. Woven from extensive research and unique interviews, as magnetic as the woman at its heart, Dorothy Dandridge captures this dazzling entertainer in all her complexity: her strength and vulnerability, her joy and her pain, her trials and her triumphs.

Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks

Author : Donald Bogle
Publisher : Burns & Oates
ISBN 13 : 9780826415189
Total Pages : 454 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (151 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks by : Donald Bogle

Download or read book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks written by Donald Bogle and published by Burns & Oates. This book was released on 2003 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of black images in American motion pictures, is re-issued for its 30th anniverary in its 4th edition. It includes the entire 20th century through black images in film, from the silent era to the unequalled rise of the new African American cinema and stars of today. From The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, and Carmen Jones to Shaft, Do the Right Thing, Waiting to Exhale, The Hurricane, and Bamboozled, Donald Bogle reveals the way the image of blacks in American cinema has changed - and also the shocking way in which it has often remained the same.

Blacks in American Films and Television

Author : Donald Bogle
Publisher : Touchstone
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 532 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Blacks in American Films and Television by : Donald Bogle

Download or read book Blacks in American Films and Television written by Donald Bogle and published by Touchstone. This book was released on 1989 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encyclopedia of blacks in the motion picture and television industry over the past 90 years with over 200 rare photographs.

Black Hollywood

Author : Kimberly Fain
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 327 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (16 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Black Hollywood by : Kimberly Fain

Download or read book Black Hollywood written by Kimberly Fain and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thought-provoking work examines the dehumanizing depictions of black males in the movies since 1910, analyzing images that were once imposed on black men and are now appropriated and manipulated by them. Moving through cinematic history decade by decade since 1910, this important volume explores the appropriation, exploitation, and agency of black performers in Hollywood by looking at the black actors, directors, and producers who have shaped the image of African American males in film. To determine how these archetypes differentiate African American males in the public's subconscious, the book asks probing questions—for example, whether these images are a reflection of society's fears or realistic depictions of a pluralistic America. Even as the work acknowledges the controversial history of black representation in film, it also celebrates the success stories of blacks in the industry. It shows how blacks in Hollywood manipulate degrading stereotypes, gain control, advance their careers, and earn money while making social statements or bringing about changes in culture. It discusses how social activist performers—such as Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and Spike Lee—reflect political and social movements in their movies, and it reviews the interactions between black actors and their white counterparts to analyze how black males express their heritage, individual identity, and social issues through film.

Primetime Blues

Author : Donald Bogle
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 1466894458
Total Pages : 512 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Primetime Blues by : Donald Bogle

Download or read book Primetime Blues written by Donald Bogle and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark study by the leading critic of African American film and television Primetime Blues is the first comprehensive history of African Americans on network television. Donald Bogle examines the stereotypes, which too often continue to march across the screen today, but also shows the ways in which television has been invigorated by extraordinary black performers, whose presence on the screen has been of great significance to the African American community. Bogle's exhaustive study moves from the postwar era of Beulah and Amos 'n' Andy to the politically restless sixties reflected in I Spy and an edgy, ultra-hip program like Mod Squad. He examines the television of the seventies, when a nation still caught up in Vietnam and Watergate retreated into the ethnic humor of Sanford and Son and Good Times and the poltically conservative eighties marked by the unexpected success of The Cosby Show and the emergence of deracialized characters on such dramatic series as L.A. Law. Finally, he turns a critical eye to the television landscape of the nineties, with shows such as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, I'll Fly Away, ER, and The Steve Harvey Show. Note: The ebook edition does not include photos.

The Coveted Westside

Author : Jennifer Mandel
Publisher : University of Nevada Press
ISBN 13 : 1647790352
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (477 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Coveted Westside by : Jennifer Mandel

Download or read book The Coveted Westside written by Jennifer Mandel and published by University of Nevada Press. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the middle of the nineteenth century, as Euro-Americans moved westward, they carried with them long-held prejudices against people of color. By the time they reached the West Coast, their new settlements included African Americans and recent Asian immigrants, as well as the indigenous inhabitants and descendants of earlier Spanish and Mexican settlers. The Coveted Westside deals with the settlement and development of Los Angeles in the context of its multiracial, multiethnic population, especially African Americans. Mandel exposes the enduring struggle between Whites determined to establish their hegemony and create residential heterogeneity in the growing city, and people of color equally determined to obtain full access to the city and the opportunities, including residential, that it offered. Not only does this book document the Black homeowners’ fight against housing discrimination, it shares personal accounts of Blacks’ efforts to settle in the highly desirable Westside of Los Angeles. Mandel explores the White-derived social and legal mechanisms that created this segregated city and the African American-led movement that challenged efforts to block access to fair housing.

Elizabeth and Michael

Author : Donald Bogle
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451676980
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Elizabeth and Michael by : Donald Bogle

Download or read book Elizabeth and Michael written by Donald Bogle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dual biography of entertainment legends Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson that explores their individual careers and personal lives leading up to and including their 25-year friendship.

Our Gang

Author : Julia Lee
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 1452949786
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (529 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Our Gang by : Julia Lee

Download or read book Our Gang written by Julia Lee and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-12-29 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was the age of Jim Crow, riddled with racial violence and unrest. But in the world of Our Gang, black and white children happily played and made mischief together. They even had their own black and white version of the KKK, the Cluck Cluck Klams—and the public loved it. The story of race and Our Gang, or The Little Rascals, is rife with the contradictions and aspirations of the sharply conflicted, changing American society that was its theater. Exposing these connections for the first time, Julia Lee shows us how much this series, from the first silent shorts in 1922 to its television revival in the 1950s, reveals about black and white American culture—on either side of the silver screen. Behind the scenes, we find unconventional men like Hal Roach and his gag writers, whose Rascals tapped into powerful American myths about race and childhood. We meet the four black stars of the series—Ernie “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison, Allen “Farina” Hoskins, Matthew “Stymie” Beard, and Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas—the gang within the Gang, whose personal histories Lee pursues through the passing years and shifting political landscape. In their checkered lives, and in the tumultuous life of the series, we discover an unexplored story of America, the messy, multiracial nation that found in Our Gang a comic avatar, a slapstick version of democracy itself.

All Made Up

Author : Rae Nudson
Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 080705982X
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (7 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis All Made Up by : Rae Nudson

Download or read book All Made Up written by Rae Nudson and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating journey through history and culture, examining how makeup affects self-empowerment, how people have used it to define (and defy) their roles in society, and why we all need to care There is a history and a cultural significance that comes with wearing cat-eye-inspired liner or a bold red lip, one that many women feel to this day, even if we don’t realize exactly why. Increasingly, people of all genders are wrestling with what it means to be a woman living in a patriarchy, and part of that is how looking like a woman—whatever that means—affects people’s real lives. Through the stories of famous women like Cleopatra, Empress Wu, Madam C. J. Walker, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marsha P. Johnson, Rae Nudson unpacks makeup’s cultural impact—including how it can be used to shape a personal or cultural narrative, how often beauty standards align with whiteness, how and when it can be used for safety, and its function in the workplace, to name a few examples. Every woman has had to make a very personal choice about her relationship with makeup, and consciously or unconsciously, every woman knows that the choice is never entirely hers to make. This book also holds space for complicating factors, especially the ways that beauty standards differ across race, class, and culture. Engaging and informative, All Made Up will expand the discussion around what it means to participate in creating your own self-image.

Every Step a Struggle

Author : Frank Manchel
Publisher : New Acdemia+ORM
ISBN 13 : 1955835055
Total Pages : 599 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (558 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Every Step a Struggle by : Frank Manchel

Download or read book Every Step a Struggle written by Frank Manchel and published by New Acdemia+ORM. This book was released on 2007-01-31 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This fascinating collection of interviews is ‘must reading’ for anyone interested in the cultural politics of race in America. A unique historical resource.” —Denise Youngblood, author of Cinematic Cold War This book pays tribute to the sacrifices and achievements of seven individuals who made difficult and controversial choices to ensure that black Americans shared in the evolution of the nation’s cultural heritage. Transcriptions and analyses of never-before-published uncensored conversations with Lorenzo Tucker, Lillian Gish, King Vidor, Clarence Muse, Woody Strode, Charles Gordone, and Frederick Douglass O’Neal reveal many of the reasons and rationalizations behind a racist screen imagery in the first three-quarters of the twentieth century. This primary source, replete with pictures, documentation, and extensive annotations, recounts through the words of important participants what happened to many film pioneers when a new generation of African-Americans rebelled against the nation’s stereotyped film imagery. “The author has taken a unique approach and may have even created a new genre of writing: theinterview embellished with scholarly commentary. It is a fascinating experiment . . . This book belongs in every research library and in all public libraries from mid-size to large cities. It fills in lacunae between existing studies.” —Peter C. Rollins, Emeritus Editor-in-Chief of Film & History

Heat Wave

Author : Donald Bogle
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 006204172X
Total Pages : 656 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Heat Wave by : Donald Bogle

Download or read book Heat Wave written by Donald Bogle and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-02-08 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the bestselling Dorothy Dandridge comes a dazzling look at one of America's brightest and most troubled theatrical stars. Almost no other star of the twentieth century reimagined herself with such audacity and durable talent as did Ethel Waters. In this enlightening and engaging biography, Donald Bogle resurrects this astonishing woman from the annals of history, shedding new light on the tumultuous twists and turns of her seven-decade career, which began in Black vaudeville and reached new heights in the steamy nightclubs of 1920s Harlem. Bogle traces Waters' life from her poverty-stricken childhood to her rise in show business; her career as one of the early blues and pop singers, with such hits as "Am I Blue?," "Stormy Weather," and "Heat Wave"; her success as an actress, appearing in such films and plays as The Member of the Wedding and Mamba's Daughters; and through her lonely, painful final years. He illuminates Waters' turbulent private life, including her complicated feelings toward her mother and various lovers; her heated and sometimes well-known feuds with such entertainers as Josephine Baker, Billie Holiday, and Lena Horne; and her tangled relationships with such legends as Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Harold Clurman, Elia Kazan, Count Basie, Darryl F. Zanuck, Vincente Minnelli, Fred Zinnemann, Moss Hart, and John Ford. In addition, Bogle explores the ongoing racial battles, growing paranoia, and midlife religious conversion of this bold, brash, wildly talented woman while examining the significance of her highly publicized life to audiences unaccustomed to the travails of a larger-than-life African American woman. Wonderfully atmospheric, richly detailed, and drawn from an array of candid interviews, Heat Wave vividly brings to life a major cultural figure of the twentieth century—a charismatic, complex, and compelling woman, both tragic and triumphant.

Colorization

Author : Wil Haygood
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN 13 : 0525656871
Total Pages : 473 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (256 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Colorization by : Wil Haygood

Download or read book Colorization written by Wil Haygood and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR • BOOKLISTS' EDITOR'S CHOICE • ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “At once a film book, a history book, and a civil rights book.… Without a doubt, not only the very best film book [but] also one of the best books of the year in any genre. An absolutely essential read.” —Shondaland This unprecedented history of Black cinema examines 100 years of Black movies—from Gone with the Wind to Blaxploitation films to Black Panther—using the struggles and triumphs of the artists, and the films themselves, as a prism to explore Black culture, civil rights, and racism in America. From the acclaimed author of The Butler and Showdown. Beginning in 1915 with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation—which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and became Hollywood's first blockbuster—Wil Haygood gives us an incisive, fascinating, little-known history, spanning more than a century, of Black artists in the film business, on-screen and behind the scenes. He makes clear the effects of changing social realities and events on the business of making movies and on what was represented on the screen: from Jim Crow and segregation to white flight and interracial relationships, from the assassination of Malcolm X, to the O. J. Simpson trial, to the Black Lives Matter movement. He considers the films themselves—including Imitation of Life, Gone with the Wind, Porgy and Bess, the Blaxploitation films of the seventies, Do The Right Thing, 12 Years a Slave, and Black Panther. And he brings to new light the careers and significance of a wide range of historic and contemporary figures: Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Berry Gordy, Alex Haley, Spike Lee, Billy Dee Willliams, Richard Pryor, Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay, and Jordan Peele, among many others. An important, timely book, Colorization gives us both an unprecedented history of Black cinema and a groundbreaking perspective on racism in modern America.

Fade In, Crossroads

Author : Robert Jackson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019066018X
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Fade In, Crossroads by : Robert Jackson

Download or read book Fade In, Crossroads written by Robert Jackson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fade In, Crossroads is a history of the relations between black and white southerners and films from the silent era to midcentury. It illustrates how the rise and fall of the American film industry coincided with that of the South's most important modern product and export: Jim Crow segregation.

Brown Sugar

Author : Donald Bogle
Publisher : Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (319 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Brown Sugar by : Donald Bogle

Download or read book Brown Sugar written by Donald Bogle and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 1990-03-21 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a wink or a nod or a shake of their hips, they acted out fantastic stories filled with whispers and secrets. They played with myths, created legends, and entertained audiences around the world. From the turn of the twentieth century to its last few decades, a striking lineup of breathtaking black women have dazzled us with their energy, talent, and style. Lavishly illustrated, "Brown Sugar" is filled with the stories of America's black female superstars: Ma Rainey, the Mother of the Blues, fought hard, drank hard, lived hard, and set high standards for all the blues women to follow. Ethel Waters developed from her role as a slinky, sultry blues-singing flapper to an acclaimed and admired dramatic actress. Josephine Baker began her career on the stage of the Folies Bergere wearing nothing but a bunch of bananas and a smile. She continued to dazzle her audiences for decades. Lena Horne, who claimed her white nightclub audiences "saw nothing but her flesh and its color onstage," went to Hollywood and was named the cafe-au-lait Hedy Lamarr. The Supremes, swept away by success and beset by tragedy, sold more than fifty million albums and put Detroit and the Motown sound on the map. Donna Summer started as a sexy joke but emerged as the undisputed Queen of Disco.

Paris Dreams, Paris Memories

Author : Charles Rearick
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804777519
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (47 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Paris Dreams, Paris Memories by : Charles Rearick

Download or read book Paris Dreams, Paris Memories written by Charles Rearick and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-06 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A rich and entertaining history of the French capital’s predominant myths and ‘image-making’ from the nineteenth century to the present.” —Roxanne Panchasi, H-France Review How did Paris become the world favorite it is today? Charles Rearick argues that we can best understand Paris as several cities in one, each with its own history and its own imaginary shaped by dream and memory. Paris has long been at once a cosmopolitan City of Light and of modernity, a patchwork of time-resistant villages, a treasured heirloom, a hell for the disinherited, and a legendary pleasure dome. Focusing on the last century and a half, Paris Dreams, Paris Memories makes contemporary Paris understandable. It tells of renewal projects radically transforming neighborhoods and of counter-measures taken to perpetuate the city’s historic character and soul. It provides a historically grounded look at the troubled suburbs. Further, it tests long-standing characterizations of Paris’s uniqueness through comparisons with such rivals as London and Berlin. Paris Dreams, Paris Memories shows that in myriad forms—buildings, monuments, festivities, and artistic portrayals—contemporary Paris gives new life to visions of the city long etched in Parisian imaginations. “A pleasure to read.” —Catherine Clark, H-Urban “Fascinating.” —Nicoleta Bazgan, Contemporary French Civilization “Rearick is an expert guide.” —Jeffrey H. Jackson, Rhodes College “Like a pleasant stroll through the city, one finds much that one has already seen, but also plenty that one has not.” —Stephen Sawyer, French History “Rearick has written not so much a history of Paris, but a history of the history of Paris.” —William Irvine, York University