![]() Merriman draws heavily on their memoirs, supplemented by archival sources and other contemporary testimony. Central to Merriman’s revelatory history are two self-proclaimed anarchists: Belgian-born Victor Kibaltchiche (he later changed his surname to Serge), the son of Russian émigrés, and his companion, French-born Rirette Maîtrejean. Angry revolutionaries railed against worker exploitation, political corruption, and injustice some, calling themselves “illegalists,” believed that “any acts against society were justified,” including theft. While Proust, Picasso, and Apollinaire pursued their art, laborers and craftspeople barely subsisted on low wages, facing destitution if they became ill or were laid off. Massacre: The Life and the Death of the Paris Commune, 2014, etc.) uncovers the dark side of the famed belle epoque, offering a fresh perspective on the reality of life for much of the city’s population. ![]() The author of several histories of Parisian unrest, Merriman (History/Yale Univ. While artists and writers rebelled against aesthetic conventions, anarchists terrorized pre–World War I Paris. ![]()
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