Paris retains echoes of its rich history around each corner.

A Brief History of Paris is an entertaining account of the chaotic history of a city that has borne witness to multiple conflicts - both national and international - and risen time and again to become the metropolis that we know today.

By wandering the streets of Paris, you travel through the ever-present history of this grand, well-planned city. Walk through Montmartre, you find the Moulin Rouge; stroll around Montparnasse and discover the drinking haunts of the Lost Generation of the 1920s; visit the square where the Bastille once stood, now home to a controversial new opera house; and marvel at the city skyline from the riverbank or the Eiffel Tower.

Author Cecil Jenkins takes the reader from the very beginnings of the city through to the modern day with a focus on the changing social conditions and the rich cultural phenomena that developed there.