# The Ruins of Paris, 1871

Much of central Paris was burned during the Franco-Prussian War that saw the death of the Commune. The resulting ruins of Paris at once became a tourist attraction, and the subject of remarkable photographs made for the tourist trade. The novelist Gustave Flaubert came to visit the ruins, and found in them a lesson for his contemporaries: if only they had understood the novel he had published some months earlier, "Sentimental Education," this cataclysmic destruction never could have happened. Peter Brooks explores that cataclysm, and the specific role of photography in the historiography of the moment.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2016
- By: John W. Kluge Center (library Of Congress)
- Genres: War, History
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2021690209/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/2021690209?play=1)