Paris: city of love, food and fashion. Paris: the city that played host to major historical and cultural dramas. Paris: a modern metropolis.

Paris is all of these, all at once, all the time. There is a unique fusion of past and present in this purposefully grand and well-planned city. The Triumphal Way, which runs straight from the Louvre through the Tuileries Gardens, across the Place de la Concorde - where the guillotine once stood - through the Arc de Triomphe towards the Arche de la Defense and into the modern business district is just one example of the many eras that remain present.

Famously a city for walkers, Paris has echoes of its history at every turn. Wandering through Montmartre, you will discover the birthplace of the energetic cancan at the Moulin Rouge; stroll around Montparnasse and see the haunts of American writer Ernest Hemingway; observe the striking new Opera de la Bastille, which stands in the same place as the notorious prison. To walk in Paris is to walk in history.

Cecil Jenkins recounts the often turbulent history with due attention to social conditions and cultural development as well as to the political events that shaped the city. It is the colourful story of a city emerging to modernity through repeated conflicts, both internal and regional: a struggle between piety and passion, prince and peasant, against competing countries in Europe.