belle époque – n - The period (1871–1914) between the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the outbreak of World War I, characterized by relative peacefulness in Western Europe and by marked advances and productivity in the arts, literature, technology, etc.
For a reasonably entertaining work on this happy time (or at least part of it) before the darkness in which we still live fell, try Barbara W. Tuchman's The Proud Tower. The title is from Poe: "While from a proud tower in the town, Death stared gigantically down."
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