The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France

Robert Darnton

Literature & Fiction

HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd

When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730's held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some twenty times? Why in the 18th century version of "Little Red Riding Hood" did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? These are some of the provocative questions Robert Darnton attempts to answer in this dazzling series of essays that probe the ways of thought in what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment."

The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History (Penguin History)

History

Europe

Penguin Books, Ltd.

In this dazzling series of essays, Robert Darnton exhumes the strange and wonderful world views of the ordinary and extraordinary people inhabiting the cities, towns, and countryside of France in what we like to call “The Age of Enlightenment.”

THE GREAT CAT MASSACRE: AND OTHER EPISODES IN FRENCH CULTURAL HISTORY (PENGUIN CLASSIC HISTORY)

In this collection of cultural essays, the author explores the boundaries between past and present. Robert Darnton is the author of "The Great Cat Massacre".

Kiss of Lamourette

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Faber Faber Inc

Listen to "An Electronic Cabaret: Paris Street Songs, 1748–50" for songs from Poetry and the Police Audio recording copyright © 2010 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. 
 In spring 1749, François Bonis, a medical student in Paris, found himself unexpectedly hauled off to the Bastille for distributing an “abominable poem about the king.” So began the Affair of the Fourteen, a police crackdown on ordinary citizens for unauthorized poetry recitals. Why was the official response to these poems so intense? 
 In this captivating book, Robert Darnton follows the poems as they passed through several media: copied on scraps of paper, dictated from one person to another, memorized and declaimed to an audience. But the most effective dispersal occurred through music, when poems were sung to familiar tunes. Lyrics often referred to current events or revealed popular attitudes toward the royal court. The songs provided a running commentary on public affairs, and Darnton brilliantly traces how the lyrics fit into song cycles that carried messages through the streets of Paris during a period of rising discontent. He uncovers a complex communication network, illuminating the way information circulated in a semi-literate society. 
 This lucid and entertaining book reminds us of both the importance of oral exchanges in the history of communication and the power of “viral” networks long before our internet age.

Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris

History & Criticism

Belknap Press

Revolutionary Temper

Allen Lane.

The era of the printed book is at a crossroad. E-readers are flooding the market, books are available to read on cell phones, and companies such as Google, Amazon, and Apple are competing to command near monopolistic positions as sellers and dispensers of digital information. Already, more books have been scanned and digitized than were housed in the great library in Alexandria. Is the printed book resilient enough to survive the digital revolution, or will it become obsolete? In this lasting collection of essays, Robert Darnton - an intellectual pioneer in the field of this history of the book - lends unique authority to the life, role, and legacy of the book in society.

The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future

Self-Help

Personal Transformation

ReadHowYouWant

PublicAffairs

The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (New History) (Japanese Edition)

Iwanami Shoten

La gran matanza de gatos y otros episodios en la historia de la cultura francesa (Spanish Edition)

FONDO DE CULTURA ECONOMICA*

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Books by Robert Darnton