A Complete History of Paris

Watch this video on Nebula:

Paris is an amazing city with an incredible history. This video tracks that history year by year as it grew from a trading post on the outer reaches of the Roman Empire to the City of Light.

Resources on this topic:

Produced by Hannah Woolsey, Dave Amos, and the fine folks at Nebula Studios.
Written by Hannah Woolsey and Dave Amos
Select images and video from Getty Images.
Black Lives Matter.
Trans rights.

[alexandrafulger]

would love this to become a series! History of London, Bucharest, Tokyo :)

[MarloSoBalJr]

Damn, this was like a live-action Wikipedia of a historical city.
Gonna need more of these kind of videos. Would be an awesome series 👍🏾

[TimBryan]

I’m glad you included the quote from Rousseau; many revisionists like to paint revolutionaries in a non-violent light but Rosseau's own words reveal his true intentions.

[sblurb]

Small correction: the Grande Arche de La Défense was actually one of François Mitterrand's " Grands Projets" (the Louvre Pyramid, Musée d'Orsay, Parc de la Villette, Arab World Institute, Opéra Bastille, Paris Bercy, Bibliothèque nationale de France).

[MarioFanGamer]

Ah, Haussmann... a very fitting name of an urban planner.

[skelitalmisfit]

I just got done researching the french revolution haha. Ironic that I find this after just learning more about the revolution.

[smith]

Just arrived in Paris with my students for a month-long study abroad program. This vid could not be more perfect for them or more better-timed. Thanks!

[the.abhiram.r]

after going to the summit of the eiffel tower, i was truly blown away by how many buildings and dense districts were in seemingly every corner of paris

[barryrobbins]

In the City of Lights the renowned French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson created many pictures never using a flash, favoring the diffused light of overcast days.

[roundninja]

Good video but I think there a few things to double check:

1) Doesn't seem fair to say that Notre-Dame was part of the origins of the Gothic style without mentioning the earlier Saint-Denis and the influence it had.
2) I think maybe this gives the Franks too much credit for popularizing Christianity in the region, because hadn't Christianity already been the state religion of Rome for over a century by that point?
3) The quote here attributed to Rousseau is more commonly attributed to Diderot, though that is also disputed. Finding the true origin of quotes can be just about impossible.
4) The yearly population counts can't be verified to nearly the level of precision shown here. No way any academic would approve so many significant figures, at least not not from premodern times.
5) The thing about the wide Paris boulevards being designed to suppress revolts is treated as fact by many people, but it's a disputable claim.

[samirgillespie]

This was a great video! The only issue is the map displays the city of Paris’ population but shows growth of the whole île de france region which houses around 14 million people

[humanecities]

Amazing to see how much a city can change during its lifetime! (Even during a single human lifetime!)

[generalZee]

I love the subtitles stuggling to keep up with proper nouns. Perhaps my favorite line is "Under the Mayor of Engineering Rule Pairs became the capital of the country." (Under Merovingian Rule Paris became the capital of the country)

[guntisber]

If only Parisians managed to preserve at least one small medieval district. It would be fascinating sight today. What surprises me most is how similar medieval Paris architecture looked to medieval London or medieval German cities. All dominated by half-timbered houses. Must be Frank influence. I love Paris, especially now that it has embraced cycling but being a big city its monotonous hausmannian architecture robs it quite a bit of charm. It is of course well compensated by numerous sights but still I feel like too much has been lost through the centuries. Maybe that is why I am more attracted to smaller French cities which preserved more of their history like Tours.

[FranciscoVarnet]

I thought the population tally was accounting for the metro area, until I saw it starting to decrease in the 1960s and get stucked in 2 mill 🤦🏽‍♂️

[johnnybaxter]

I think it was a shame that you only counted the population within city limits at the end. It doesn't let you contemplate how big it got.

[rileynicholson]

Since the title of this video is currently "How Did Paris Become a Global Powerhouse?", I find it disappointing that you didn't discussion wealth extraction from rural France or the global colonialism of the French empire at all. Thomas Piketty has done some interesting work on the subject and it's clear that Paris was dramatically changed by these wealth flows.

Of course, going into more detail would make this video hours long rather than minutes.

[jonathanstensberg]

Underrated: the Church’s University of Paris quickly became the most important university during the golden age that was the High Middle Ages. Every major academic would visit Paris, if not take permanent residence there, making Paris the intellectual epicenter of Europe for centuries.

[cloudyskies]

This was really fascinating I would love to see videos of other cities and their history (will check if they've already been done)

[FreshCocoa]

I love learning about topics like this! Would you consider making a similar video on Vienna as well?