ROBERT KANIGEL

Founded by seafaring Greeks, colonized by Romans, and transformed by spoiled English aristocrats into an elegant stop on the Grand Tour, the city of Nice has beguiled travelers for two millennia. Once the winter playground for Russian royalty and an inspiration for Matisse, Isadora Duncan, and Picasso, Nice is now one of the capitals of mass tourism, overrun each summer with a motley international crowd of pleasure seekers. In High Season, acclaimed writer Robert Kanigel recounts holw and why Nice came to define the nature of vacation itself -- liberation, exoticism, sun, sex, and sensuality.

For centuries Nice slumbered beside the Mediterranean in beautiful serenity -- an amalgam of French, Italian, and Provencal cultures built over tantalizing classical ruins. Then, in the mid-eighteenth century, English traveler Tobias Smollett exalted the splendors of Nice in a bestselling travel chronicle -- and overnight, high society descended. Jefferson visited the city. F. Scott Fitzgerald partied in its seaside villas, and both Nazis and Jews took refuge there during World War II. Though the rich and famous now often turn elsewhere, Nice remains the queen of the Riviera: seductive, complex, stylish, dazzling in its light and loveliness.

Written with wit, verve, and originality, High Season is a tour de force of contemporary nonfiction -- and a must read for anyone captivated by the beauty of the Mediterranean.

-- From the dustjacket of the Viking hardcover edition, 2002

Viking hardcover, 2002
UK hardcover [High Season in Nice] Little, Brown, 2002
UK paperback, Abacus, 2003

Newsweek, Best Beach Reads, 2002
Chicago Tribune, Summer Choice, 2002

Selected reviews: New York Times Book Review, Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Sunday Telegraph (U.K), Sunday Times (U.K.), Daily Mail (U.K.), Spectator (U.K.), Time (U.K. edition), Irish Times (Ireland)

"Why has Nice continued to delight tourists through the centuries, even though it is constantly changing and growing? Robert Kanigel's lighthearted, stylishly written survey of their reactions through the centuries succeeds in conveying the city's genius at enveloping its visitors in a balmy atmosphere of relaxation." -- Theodore Zeldin, president of the Oxford Muse, author of The French and An Intimate History of Humanity

"In High Season, the story of Nice is recounted as if this French city were a character from a nineteenth century novel. Robert Kanigel skillfully weaves Nice's legendary appeal with the long and complex history of those who have fallen to its charm. The book is both informative and entertaining, illuminating Nice's fascinating past while reminding readers of the reasons why it has attracted and seduced (and still does) so many, for so long." -- Isabelle de Courtivron, professor of French studies, MIT

"A delightful romp. Kanigel evokes the bright blue skies and soft breezes of Nice with beauty and precision. We come to know the city exactly as it must have seemed to the expectant visitor a century ago, a millennium ago, and the day before yesterday. A book as lovely, strange, and enticing as travel itself." -- Robin Marantz Henig, author of The Monk in the Garden

"An urbane history of Nice...Like an enthralled biologist, the author observes the evolution of Nice as a social ecosystem. His portrait is as spellbinding as its subject." -- Kirkus Reviews

"This is not a Polaroid of a placed fixed in time, but at once a sepia photograph, a black and white print and a digital image of a succession of adaptable cities. Kanigel traces the impact of the evolution of science, revolution, transport, and world wars on this city. Airports, socialist governments and peace treaties come under the same microscope as fashionable tans and the influence of Brigitte Bardot. He links his subjects with consummate skill...to produce an ardently researched, enlightening report on a city that becomes, through the course of this study, a marker for change, an indicator of social mores and fashions and a case study for the rise of tourism as an industry and an art form." -- Publisher's Weekly

Kanigel tells his story "with a panache and a conviviality worthy of the city at its best." -- New York Times Book Review

"An erudite and entertaining history of Nice...[The author] accomplishes something truly tricky here: He blends primary source material...and his own observations to produce an accomplished biography of a city...He is deft at evoking a romantic sense of place, but draws a hardheaded portrait of tourism as an industry that sometimes smothers tradition and scars the natural world. This hardcover has just a few illustrations, but they're good ones. Kanigel's writing is the main attraction. Highly recommended, for the beach or the study." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Literate Traveler" column

"Kanigel has compiled a hybrid, neither a lightweight beach book nor a dry work of scholarship. Instead, High Season in Nice is a lively contribution to the literature of travel history...He manages to evoke the warm, seductive lure or Nice in the 19th century and the grubby contemporary reality with both sympathy and balance. He also a memorable cast of characters who have helped to make Nice such a troubled paradise." -- Time (Europe)

"An engaging account of the town that is the jewel in the crown of the Cote d'Azur...Kanigel evokes the spirit of exoticism and sensuality at the heart of this sybaritic city. The war-time chapter is fascinating."
-- Daily Express

"This book is full of the sound of people being happy. " -- Sunday Times