With increasing scholarly interest in urban parks and in the landscape environment in general, this book represents a welcome addition to this area of study. Hopkins’ tight focus on the development of public parks in nineteenth-century Paris directs the reader's attention to the impact of these urban greenspaces on the milieu of the city.
Although the title of the book makes explicit mention of the planning of Paris’ parks, this is something of a misnomer as the book extends well beyond this aspect to examine how these spaces were experienced by those who visited and worked there and how the parks fitted into their wider locales. A careful distinction is made between the larger public parks such as the Bois de Boulogne and the Parc des Buttes Chaumont and the smaller open squares (often referred to as ‘pocket parks’). The various French nomenclatures (and their derivations) to describe the different kinds of parks are outlined in order for the reader to understand precisely the variety of greenspaces under discussion.
The text consists of five main chapters, with a brief introduction and conclusion. It is supplemented by an extensive appendix, which lists all of the parks and squares in Paris with the dates of their inauguration and arrondissement locations. This, in conjunction with the detailed bibliography, provides a useful starting point for the academic audience for which this book is clearly intended. However, the text goes somewhat beyond a mere academic treatise as it sketches the background to the development of the many types of greenspaces in Paris during the nineteenth century.
Predictably, mention is made of the influential designer and prefect of Paris Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, but a much more interesting figure emerges in the shape of Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, a civil engineer who was placed in effective charge of the development of parks in the city in 1856. Alphand was head of the Service des Promenades et Plantations (parks and squares) until his death in 1891. His responsibilities extended far beyond the traditional role of the parks superintendent in Britain as he controlled ‘all aspects of public works projects in the city of Paris and was in charge of most branches of the municipal administration’ (pp. 18–19). A combination of a pragmatist and a romantic, Alphand was the prime instigator of the acquisition, design, layout and maintenance of the parks and open spaces of Paris for 35 years.
The chapter on the ordinary park workers of Paris prevents the text from taking a top-down approach to the study of life in the urban park during this period. Much neglected, the parks' employees here achieve a refreshing focus, especially with regard to their relationships with the public. These contacts were not always easy ones – the needs and desires of the visitors often conflicting with those whose job it was to maintain order and discipline in the parks. Hopkins presents the greenspaces as ‘social minefields’ in which social groups not accustomed to sharing a space often found it difficult to accommodate each other's views (p. 69). This is an all-too-familiar problem to those of us who have studied the uses of public parks in other countries and reflects a continuing sense of parks as contested spaces. Hopkins’ accounts of criminal and sexual behaviour in these spaces emphasizes the challenges posed by their existence, especially given the traditional importance of citizens' rights in French history and culture. The conflict between the right of the citizen to access public space and the problems presented by the presence of some of those citizens such as vagrants and prostitutes were as acute in Paris as in many other European and American cities that were trying to provide open spaces for the public.
Similarly, familiar arguments are explored in the chapters on public health and the relationship of the parks with the wider neighbourhoods. The agency of the local residents in expressing their views and in their willingness to confront the parks' authorities in a dissenting manner all contribute to a sense that parks were formed as much by their users as by their designers and opens up the possibility of viewing them as truly democratic urban spaces. Hopkins draws on the work of anthropologist Victor Turner's idea of ‘communitas’ in order to offer some theoretical underpinning to the text. This refers to the mechanisms by which very different people can coalesce and form bonds around a common interest, such as a park, and thereby impact on the environment itself. This is a mostly satisfactory method of examining the development of these parks as it captures their organic qualities and the often-haphazard patterns of their evolution.
The final chapter of the book on ‘Cultivating broader communities’ feels a little superfluous and as if it was created to contain that material which did not fit neatly into other chapters. Its concentration on general leisure trends in the parks has a looser focus than the other chapters and feels less satisfying as a result. This might have been the place to attempt to place developments in Paris in a broader, global context. The main comparison in the book is with parks in Britain, which is not surprising but there is little mention of developments in other European countries or in the United States (with the exception of the predictable references to Central Park in New York). As the author is based at an American university, it is notable that the comparisons with advances in that country rarely merit a mention.
The book also lacks illustrations – it offers six black and white maps, mostly of the smaller parks and squares with the exception of the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. There is one postcard, which acts as a frontispiece. Presumably, this lack can be explained by the high costs of image reproduction and permission rights for scholarly publication. In a book such as this, however, this is a great loss as more maps, photographs and postcards could have offered an intriguing source of further evidence about how these spaces were used and enjoyed. That aside, this is a timely and enjoyable read and an important contribution to an evolving area of study for urban historians.
