Nouvelles du paradis

Since the end of the 19th century, postcards have played a key role in depicting the countryside. Initially linked to voluntary or forced migration, postcards gradually became a holiday ritual with the rise of paid holidays and mass tourism. Faced with increasingly stiff competition, map publishers battled for the best sales outlets, constantly improving their collections of views to match changing consumer tastes as closely as possible, even if it meant resorting to photomontage…

Nouvelles du paradis takes an original, dual approach to postcards. As an object of correspondence, on the one hand, and as an industrial and editorial product, on the other. By revealing the intricacies of the production of commercial tourist imagery, rather than merely providing a superficial iconographic commentary, this book fills a real gap. Designed as a reference work, it combines contributions from a variety of disciplines (history, sociology, ethnology, contemporary art) to provide a comprehensive picture of the evolution of this disappearing popular object.