Paris in the eighteenth century bore little resemblance to the romantic City of Light that attracts visitors from all over the world today. In 1749, the enlightenment author Voltaire turned a critical eye to his beloved city and wrote the essay “On The Beautification of Paris.” Voltaire observed, “We need public markets, fountains that actually give water, regular intersections, performance halls; we need to widen the narrow and filthy streets, uncover monuments that we cannot see and build new ones to be seen.” The crowded medieval neighbourhoods and shortage of clean drinking water threatened public health.

Readers of Victor Hugo’s classic novel, Les Miserables, and fans of the musical based on the novel will remember that narrow streets were also ideal places for revolutionaries to build barricades and oppose the government. In Paris Reborn: Napoléon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Quest to Build a Modern City, former architect and consultant Stephane Kirkland reveals how an Emperor and his appointed Prefect of the Seine created a new Paris that responded to the growth of industrialization and the birth of mass tourism.

The story of Baron Haussman’s radical changes to the Paris streetscape has been told in numerous other English language histories of the city such as Paris: The Biography of a City by Colin Jones and Seven Ages Of Paris by Alistair Horne. Paris Reborn stands out from all these previous works because Kirkland places Napoleon III (President 1848-1852, Emperor 1852-1870) rather than Hausmann at the centre of the book. Hausmann found creative ways to finance the building of grand avenues through the city and new buildings and public health initiatives but the the overarching idea for a new Paris was that of Napoleon III. The failings of the modern Paris, such as the destruction of historic neighborhoods and inadequacy of working class housing also reflected the Emperor’s limitations in the realm of urban design.

The displacement of 20% of the Parisian population during the Second Empire, the controversial destruction of medieval quarters and showcasing of a new Paris required the Emperor’s authority. Those who decried the loss of the old Paris blamed Haussman but the prefect was doing everything his power to create the city envisioned by Napoleon III.

The political career of Napoleon III is central to Paris Reborn but Kirkland fills his engaging account of the building of a new Paris with telling details about the various historical figures who lived in the Emperor’s capital or visited and left their impressions. Queen Victoria, visited Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie with Prince Albert and their two eldest children in the summer of 1855. While the Queen’s green parasol and enormous handbag embroidered with a poodle design could not compete with the fashions of the Empress Eugenie, her presence in Paris was an opportunity to showcase the new city and the legitimacy of the Second Empire.

European Royalty also descended on Paris for the 1867 Universal Exposition, marvelling at grand boulevards, high culture and technological innovations of Napoleon III’s Paris. The Viceroy of Egypt, Ismail Pasha, was so impressed by the performance of the opera bouffe by Jacques Offenbach, The Great Duchess of Gerolstein, that he attended the theatre every night during his stay in Paris. Victor Hugo acknowledged the need for Paris to introduce modern innovations but he decried the loss of so much of the medieval city. (Hugo’s famous 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame celebrated Paris’s Gothic architecture). American author Mark Twain sardonically noted that the grand boulevards were perfect for firing a cannonball straight through a revolutionary barricade and the medical discoveries of Louis Pasteur inspired the rebuilding of the historic Hotel Dieu.

Paris Reborn: Napoléon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Quest to Build a Modern City is a well researched and beautifully written account of the building of Napoleon III’s Paris. Kirkland places the Emperor and his vision at the centre of the narrative and includes the perspectives of a diverse array of historical figures who all had their own expectations of the historic city and the rebuilding that occured in their lifetimes. I recommend Paris Reborn to anyone interested in nineteenth century royalty and/or birth of the modern Paris.

The great families of the Italian Renaissance are better known for the art and literature they commissioned and inspired than their own actions. The works of Michaelangelo, Da Vinci and Machiavelli have transcended the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries but the members of the Medici, Sforza, Goganza, Este, Aragona and Borgia families were people of their time, navigating the complex power dynamics of the Italian states. To modern eyes, Renaissance noblewomen appear comparatively insignificant, remaining in their palatial residences while their fathers and brothers faced each other on the battlefield. In The Deadly Sisterhood: A story of Women, Power and Intrigue in the Italian Renaissance, Leonie Frieda brings eight of the most prominent noble ladies of the period to life, revealing just how important women and their connections were to the power and success of the Renaissance nobility.

Freida’s previous popular biography, Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France, examined the most famous example of an Italian Renaissance family increasing its prestige through an illustrious marriage. The eight central figures in The Deadly Sisterhood are either unknown to general audiences (Isabella d’Aragona and Beatrice d’Este) or have been reduced to villainous stereotypes in the popular imagination (Caterina Sforza and Lucrezia Borgia). Frieda challenges the legends that have emerged about Caterina and Lucrezia and presents all eight women as multifaceted individuals, raised to play influential roles in rival courts. Frieda looks at Italy’s most prominent Renaissance women together, presenting a story of rising and falling fortunes, lavish pageantry and last minute escapes that reads like a novel.

The late fourteenth century saw Italian noblewomen sharing a classical, humanist education with their brothers in addition to learning traditional feminine accomplishments such as dancing, music and needlework. As married women, many became patrons of artists and musicians in their right. Their lessons in rhetoric and reason were also useful because a noblewomen expected to reign as regent over her husband’s territories during his absences and persuade wavering supporters to remain loyal to the family. The understanding that noblewomen were capable of the same rigorous education provided for young men increased their status within their families and the expectations they faced as wives, mothers and regents.

At the centre of Frieda’s narrative are the controversial figures of Caterina Sforza and Lucretia Borgia. Caterina is most famous for a single episode in her life, refusing to hand over a key fortress to her late husband’s enemies who held her children as hostages. Her declaration that her children were expendable because she was pregnant and able to have more has been interpreted as a calculating bid for power at all costs. Frieda fills in the events that preceded Caterina’s capture of the fortress, revealing the danger to her entire family, including her children, if she did not find some means of persuading the rebels to retreat from Forli.

Frieda also places the entire Borgia family in context. Pope Alexander VI is famous as the corrupt figure whose excesses brought the Roman Catholic Church into disrepute. Frieda provides evidence that both the Pope and his daughter Lucretia shared a genuine piety that they separated from their worldly actions.

The Deadly Sisterhood: A story of Women, Power and Intrigue in the Italian Renaissance brings together eight of the most influential and powerful women of Renaissance Italy. Their marriages connected the most prominent families of the period and their actions helped their husbands and children to retain their places in the shifting political structure of the Italian states. The sack of Rome by troops commanded by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1527, ended this unique period in history, reducing the opportunities for Italian noblewomen to rule states or command armies but the subsequent regencies of the Medici queens of France demonstrates that the tradition of female authority as educated wives and mothers continued in prominent Italian families for centuries.