The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History - Softcover

Darnton, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465012744 ISBN 13: 9780465012749

Publisher: Basic Books, 2009

Synopsis

The landmark history of France and French culture in the eighteenth-century, a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730s 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 eighteenth-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 the distinguished Harvard historian Robert Darnton answers The Great Cat Massacre, a kaleidoscopic view of European culture during in what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment." A classic of European history, it is an essential starting point for understanding Enlightenment France.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

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."

From the Back Cover:

"Striking, original and often very clever."-- Time

"Brilliant." -- The Washington Post Book World

"An exercise in culture shock." -- Chronicle of Higher Education

"Robert Darnton has the inquisitiveness of an investigative reporter, the thoroughness of a rigorous scholar and the sensitivity of a novelist." -- Stanley Hoffman, The New Republic

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0465012744
• ISBN 13: 9780465012749
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320