First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

John Host addresses liberal, Marxist and post modernist historiography on Victorian working people to question the special status of historical knowledge. The central focus of this study is a debate about mid-Victorian social stability, a condition conventionally equated with popular acceptance of the prevailing social order. Host does not join the debate but takes it as his object of analysis, deconstructing the notion of stability and the analysis that purports to explain it. Host examines an extensive range of archival material to illustrate the ambiguity of the historical field, the rhetorical strategies through which the illusion of its unity is created, and the ultimately fictive quality of historical narrative.

For many people, Paris is the epitome of the perfect city--beautiful, romantic, and imbued with vitality and culture. It is a wonderful place to visit and to live in. Packed with fact, anecdote, and insight, A Traveller's History of Paris offers a complete history of Paris and the people who have shaped its destiny, from its earliest settlement as the Roman village of Lutetia Parisiorum with a few hundred inhabitants, to 20 centuries later when Paris is a city of well over two million--nearly one-fifth of the population of France. This handy paperback is fully indexed and includes a Chronology of Major Events, as well as sections on Notre-Dame and historic churches, Modernism, parks, bridges, cemeteries, museums and galleries, the Metro, and the environs. Illustrated with line drawings and historical maps, this is an invaluable book for all visitors to read and enjoy.