Books by Dominique Kalifa

The years before the First World War have long been romanticized as a zenith of French culture-the "Belle Epoque." Dominique Kalifa traces the making-and the imagining-of the Belle Epoque to reveal how and why it became a cultural myth.

Vice, Crime, and Poverty traces the untold history of the concept of the underworld and its representations in popular culture. From the Parisian demimonde to Victorian squalor, from the slums of New York to the sewers of Buenos Aires, Dominique Kalifa deciphers the making of an image that has cast an enduring spell on its audience.