Everything begins six centuries before Christ when the Phocaeans arrive on this Provençal coast and establish a trading post to sell their products. You could say that from its very inception Marseille had this commercial role of a port exporting and importing products from other horizons.
The author takes us through his Marseille, its streets, squares, avenues, its history, its development, and its most important and often tragic chapters like the plague and cholera epidemics.
Then there is History, where this city plays a major role given its geographical position. Marseille or Aix? The two cities are rivals—one opens to the world, the other to Northern Europe via the Rhône.
Raoul Busquet, in a very lively manner, helps us discover this city through its unknown aspects. The great commercial families, the bourgeoisie, the nobility, the common people from the northern districts, its divisions, the religious life. Nothing is omitted and the great revolutionary crises had their dramas and excesses in Marseille.
The old port and its two forts, La Joliette and its docks, the Corniche, the monuments, the German occupation and the destruction of the old neighborhoods, the town hall, the mayors, the political life. This book is a testimony of Marseille, a city born six centuries before Christ, a city of 2,500 years whose remains, although mostly disappeared, are still present in the memory of the people of Marseille.
Thierry Jan
