The FlNeur and His City

The book provides a flneurs eye view of Parisian life in the first half of the nineteenth century: dress, cafs and restaurants, but also shops and passages, the omnibus, bals publics and carnival. The author provides general conclusions about the private and public spheres in le vieux Paris. Like the flneur, the author concentrates less on factual information for its own sake which may be found in the secondary works cited in the text and footnotes than on the semiological or anthropological significance of the cultural forms in question. Links are drawn between cultural institutions and class relations in pre-1850 Paris, with particular emphasis on cultural inequality, on the persistence of cross-class contacts, and the growing differences between classes as reflected in behaviour and attitudes. -- .