In the mid-nineteenth century, the Paris we know today was born, the vision of two extraordinary men, the endlessly ambitious Emperor Napoleon III and his unstoppable accomplice Baron Haussmann. Paris was transformed in an extraordinary period from 1848 to 1870, when the government launched a huge campaign to build streets, squares, parks, churches, and public buildings. This is the vivid and engrossing account of the greatest transformation of a major city in modern history. PARIS REBORN is a must-read for anyone who ever wondered how Paris, the city universally admired as a standard of urban beauty, became what it is.