Paris on the Brink: The 1930s Paris of Jean Renoir, Salvador Dalí, Simone de Beauvoir, André Gide, Sylvia Beach, Léon Blum, and Their Friends

Review McAuliffe (When Paris Sizzled, 2016) continues her career-defining cultural survey of Paris as the global depression gives rise to fascism and another world war.... McAuliffe, once again, presents a memorable collage of Parisian legends. ― BooklistParis on the Brink vividly evokes the cultural and political life of Paris during the 1930s. The cast of characters is comprehensive. Hemingway, James Joyce, André Gide, Coco Chanel, Henry Miller, and Josephine Baker, among many other notables, mingle in a bright narrative that wheels from portrait to portrait like a whirligig overshadowed by the lengthening specter of war. McAuliffe has written a truly absorbing book. -- Frederick Brown, author of The Embrace of Unreason: France, 1914–1940Rich and fascinating, this cleverly woven tapestry of stories from the turbulent 1930s shows how the political and artistic worlds of Paris came together in the powerful march of history. Paris on the Brink delivers a genuinely engaging and dramatic account of a profoundly significant era. -- Laird Easton, author of The Red Count: The Life and Times of Harry KesslerA breezy, rollicking, and vastly entertaining popular history of the international cultural and intellectual life of Paris during the troubled decade just before the Second World War. -- Victoria Best, author of An Introduction to Twentieth-Century French Literature Product Description Paris on the Brink vividly portrays the City of Light during the tumultuous 1930s, from the Wall Street Crash of 1929 to war and German Occupation. This was a dangerous and turbulent decade, during which workers flexed their economic muscle and their opponents struck back with increasing violence. As the divide between haves and have-nots widened, so did the political split between left and right, with animosities exploding into brutal clashes, intensified by the paramilitary leagues of the extreme right. Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini escalated the increasingly hazardous international environment, while the civil war in Spain added to the instability of the times. Yet throughout the decade, Paris remained at the center of cultural creativity. Major figures on the Paris scene, such as Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, André Gide, Marie Curie, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, and Coco Chanel, continued to hold sway, in addition to Josephine Baker, Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, Man Ray, and Le Corbusier. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre could now be seen at their favorite cafés, while Jean Renoir, Salvador Dalí, and Elsa Schiaparelli came to prominence, along with France’s first Socialist prime minister, Léon Blum. Despite the decade’s creativity and glamour, it remained a difficult and dangerous time, and Parisians responded with growing nativism and anti-Semitism, while relying on their Maginot Line to protect them from external harm. Through rich illustrations and evocative narrative, Mary McAuliffe brings this extraordinary era to life. About the Author Mary McAuliffe received a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland and has taught at several universities and lectured at the Smithsonian Institution. For many years she was a regular contributor to Paris Notes. She has traveled extensively in France and is the author of Dawn of the Belle Epoque: The Paris of Monet, Zola, Bernhardt, Eiffel, Debussy, Clemenceau, and Their Friends. She lives in New York City with her husband.