This volume questions the putatively Benjaminian notion that nineteenth-century Paris is the primary locus of modern capitalism. Reflecting on the multiple visions offered by our contributors of the historical complexity of early French capitalist modernity and the connections among politics, money, and culture within Paris as capital city, we propose two modes of thinking its past. The first recognizes features of capitalism and urban modernity appearing in Paris well before the mid-nineteenth century, while the second theorizes how the forces of urban modernity and capital are interwoven within complex temporalities that resist linear periodization.