If a requiem mass were a book, that book might be Paris perdu.

Paris perdu is a coffee-table book written by a collective and featuring hundreds of interesting photographs; as befits the funereal tone, all of the latter are in black and white.

The book’s title means “lost Paris”, although the title also is a pun on “losing bets” or “a lost wager”.

The book’s subject is the loss suffered by various Paris neighborhoods through urban renewal, renovation, and development.

This reader found the text militant and ultimately superfluous: Paris perdu makes a strong case through its use of photographs. All of the photographs were chosen carefully, and many of them are intriguing. They make Paris perdu a great book for leisurely, repeated viewing, for any lover of Paris. I was particularly captivated, and dismayed, by a treasure of photographs of the Halles before their demolition and replacement by a commuter train hub and shopping mall (whose renovation is pending).

Paris perdu has two weaknesses, both rhetorical. First, it overstates its case at times. From a safe remove (of fifty or a hundred years), poverty or squalor can seem charming, or at least photogenic. Subdivision, cramped living quarters, and tuberculosis are ills on which this book does not long dwell. Second, instead of resting its case by presenting what is no longer, the book too often makes a point by contrasting the past (authentic, rich) with the present (standardized, enriching only for developers).

Paris perdu was published in 1991 by Editions Carré. It is no longer in print, but can be found in used bookshops or in libraries.