History on rails
There's a certain pattern I seem to stumble upon in history all the time. History is best examined as processes going in parallel to one another, sometimes converging and sometimes diverting. Perhaps like rail roads: from the historian's perspective, people are not actors on a stage, but more like passengers in a train. Obviously, some have better seats than others. Passengers board on one station and get off on another, though sometimes the going off is not entirely according to plan. In fact, think of riding a train when you are not aware of the schedule and are, thus, surprised when you suddenly need to change a train or to get off.
Yet, many people seem to think of history as human made. They identify historical events and processes with certain people, while most historical processes are so difficult to imagine and conceive by a single person, if you're a passenger in a train, not knowing where the next stop is.
Going through the depictions of Paris in the 19th century and the transformation of its centre from the medieval market type to a modern city, one may find himself believing to the myth that it was all the work of one person: Baron Haussmann. Haussmann was Napoleon III's Prefect of the Seine, which is something above mayor in the executive branch and in the modern American equivalent, a governor of Paris. He planned and gradually transformed the centre of Paris from an environment of bustling medieval narrow streets to wide boulevards, and among other things, constructed several important edifices in the middle of Paris.
In the art and literature of the 1860s and 1870s, writers like Victor Hugo and Emile Zola contrast the Paris of the 1830s and 1840s with that of the 1860s and 1870s and describe the boulevards as "faceless", "grey", "monstrous", "the life in the city centre is gone". Zola's L'Assommoir features Gervaise's futile attempt to collect some money from people who pass by, showing how the new, inhuman character of the city reflects on its citizens. The interesting part is that most, if not all, seem to call it "Haussmannization", or in other terms point to Haussmann as the architect of this social and aesthetic novelty (and a disaster to them).
What is to be seen is that Haussmann transformed Paris as much as Caius Marius reformed the army of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. The claim is not that Haussmann didn't plan and execute a new city plan in Paris, but instead, that Haussmann simply made the changes already in the making show upon the layout of the city.
In the middle of the 19th century, Paris was transforming: the small, highly specialised businesses and craftsmen were beginning to disappear and a new, capitalist, economy was forming in the edges of the city. City markets began to disperse as department stores, or magasins, reached unprecedented profits. This economical transformation had, ultimately, a decisive effect on the social fabric of the city centre in Paris. It was an accomplished fact in Paris of the 1860s, when Haussmann began building his wide boulevards, on which new forms of business replaced the old ones.
Credits: Theodore Zeldin, Charles Rearick, and others.
Yet, many people seem to think of history as human made. They identify historical events and processes with certain people, while most historical processes are so difficult to imagine and conceive by a single person, if you're a passenger in a train, not knowing where the next stop is.
Going through the depictions of Paris in the 19th century and the transformation of its centre from the medieval market type to a modern city, one may find himself believing to the myth that it was all the work of one person: Baron Haussmann. Haussmann was Napoleon III's Prefect of the Seine, which is something above mayor in the executive branch and in the modern American equivalent, a governor of Paris. He planned and gradually transformed the centre of Paris from an environment of bustling medieval narrow streets to wide boulevards, and among other things, constructed several important edifices in the middle of Paris.
In the art and literature of the 1860s and 1870s, writers like Victor Hugo and Emile Zola contrast the Paris of the 1830s and 1840s with that of the 1860s and 1870s and describe the boulevards as "faceless", "grey", "monstrous", "the life in the city centre is gone". Zola's L'Assommoir features Gervaise's futile attempt to collect some money from people who pass by, showing how the new, inhuman character of the city reflects on its citizens. The interesting part is that most, if not all, seem to call it "Haussmannization", or in other terms point to Haussmann as the architect of this social and aesthetic novelty (and a disaster to them).
What is to be seen is that Haussmann transformed Paris as much as Caius Marius reformed the army of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. The claim is not that Haussmann didn't plan and execute a new city plan in Paris, but instead, that Haussmann simply made the changes already in the making show upon the layout of the city.
In the middle of the 19th century, Paris was transforming: the small, highly specialised businesses and craftsmen were beginning to disappear and a new, capitalist, economy was forming in the edges of the city. City markets began to disperse as department stores, or magasins, reached unprecedented profits. This economical transformation had, ultimately, a decisive effect on the social fabric of the city centre in Paris. It was an accomplished fact in Paris of the 1860s, when Haussmann began building his wide boulevards, on which new forms of business replaced the old ones.
Credits: Theodore Zeldin, Charles Rearick, and others.