The Darnton Debate

Ever since Professor Robert Darnton aroused the interest of all Enlightenment scholars with the publication of 'The High Enlightenment and the low-life literature in pre-revolutionary France' in 1971, he has been in the forefront of debate about that period and the French Revolution which followed it. His work has long been an indispensable study for all those who ponder on the nature and evolution of these great movements. By the mid 1990s, however, it was apparent that Darnton's far-reaching conclusions on the relationship of the Enlightenment to the Revolution, together with his historical accounts of printed works and the mentalités of the eighteenth century, merited a comprehensive debate on his whole œuvre. The present collection sparks off that debate. The contributors to this volume were invited freely to address any particular aspect of Robert Darnton's researches or to discuss the whole trust of his thinking about the past. Darnton readily agreed to this proposal, encouraging the editor to send invitations to long-standing critics just as much as to more sympathetic readers.The essays collected here respond to the original request, in diverse ways. Taking up a whole spectrum of positions about Darnton's work, they attempt an answer based on deep reflection or assiduous source-research or both.In a coda to the volume Robert Darnton responds robustly to the various readings of his work. In places he seeks to rescue it from what he considers to be false interpretations and to set the record straight. But his essay is not just a rebuttal. It moves the debate on, bringing new insights and information not previously published. His conclusion are as flexible open-ended as one could wish, and in line with which they have been richly plumbed in his writings.The threads running through the various essays are drawn together by a comprehensive index of eighteenth-century persons and writings. 'Darnton at his best [...] adds new and often vivid evidence to support arguments he has advanced before. The book isno Festschrift...; a commentary on the impact on his chosen field of an original mind and a distinguished stylist.'Times Literary Supplement 'This excellently conceived volume reflects the centrality of Darnton's achievement to the historical orientation of eighteenth-century scholarship in the second half of the twentieth century by bringing together the views of twelve distinguished specialists. The collection concludes with a reaction to the debate by Darnton himself. Not all the contributors are pro-Darnton enthusiasts, and the volume is far more than just a tribute to the work of a great scholar. It offers thoughtful reflections on, and a vigorous critical engagement with, the way Darnton addresses the past.'Modern Language Review

Ever since Professor Robert Darnton aroused the interest of all Enlightenment scholars with the publication of 'The High Enlightenment and the low-life literature in pre-revolutionary France' in 1971, he has been in the forefront of debate about that period and the French Revolution which followed it. His work has long been an indispensable study for all those who ponder on the nature and evolution of these great movements. By the mid 1990s, however, it was apparent that Darnton's far-reaching conclusions on the relationship of the Enlightenment to the Revolution, together with his historical accounts of printed works and the mentalités of the eighteenth century, merited a comprehensive debate on his whole uvre. The present collection sparks off that debate. The contributors to this volume were invited freely to address any particular aspect of Robert Darnton's researches or to discuss the whole trust of his thinking about the past. Darnton readily agreed to this proposal, encouraging the editor to send invitations to long-standing critics just as much as to more sympathetic readers. The essays collected here respond to the original request, in diverse ways. Taking up a whole spectrum of positions about Darnton's work, they attempt an answer based on deep reflection or assiduous source-research or both. In a coda to the volume Robert Darnton responds robustly to the various readings of his work. In places he seeks to rescue it from what he considers to be false interpretations and to set the record straight. But his essay is not just a rebuttal. It moves the debate on, bringing new insights and information not previously published. His conclusion are as flexible open-ended as one could wish, and in line with which they have been richly plumbed in his writings. The threads running through the various essays are drawn together by a comprehensive index of eighteenth-century persons and writings.

Ever since Professor Robert Darnton aroused the interest of all Enlightenment scholars with the publication of 'The High Enlightenment and the low-life literature in pre-revolutionary France' in 1971, he has been in the forefront of debate about that period and the French Revolution which followed it. His work has long been an indispensable study for all those who ponder on the nature and evolution of these great movements. By the mid 1990s, however, it was apparent that Darnton's far-reaching conclusions on the relationship of the Enlightenment to the Revolution, together with his historical accounts of printed works and the mentalités of the eighteenth century, merited a comprehensive debate on his whole uvre. The present collection sparks off that debate. The contributors to this volume were invited freely to address any particular aspect of Robert Darnton's researches or to discuss the whole trust of his thinking about the past. Darnton readily agreed to this proposal, encouraging the editor to send invitations to long-standing critics just as much as to more sympathetic readers. The essays collected here respond to the original request, in diverse ways. Taking up a whole spectrum of positions about Darnton's work, they attempt an answer based on deep reflection or assiduous source-research or both. In a coda to the volume Robert Darnton responds robustly to the various readings of his work. In places he seeks to rescue it from what he considers to be false interpretations and to set the record straight. But his essay is not just a rebuttal. It moves the debate on, bringing new insights and information not previously published. His conclusion are as flexible open-ended as one could wish, and in line with which they have been richly plumbed in his writings. The threads running through the various essays are drawn together by a comprehensive index of eighteenth-century persons and writings.

"A collection of essays examining how print culture shaped the legacy of the Enlightenment. Explores the challenges, contradictions, and dilemmas modern European societies have encountered since the eighteenth century in trying to define, spread, and realize Enlightenment ideas and values"--Provided by publisher.

The publishing industry in France in the years before the Revolution was a lively and sometimes rough-and-tumble affair, as publishers and printers scrambled to deal with (and if possible evade) shifting censorship laws and tax regulations, in order to cater to a reading public's appetite for books of all kinds, from the famous Encyclopédie, repository of reason and knowledge, to scandal-mongering libel and pornography. Historian and librarian Robert Darnton uses his exclusive access to a trove of documents-letters and documents from authors, publishers, printers, paper millers, type founders, ink manufacturers, smugglers, wagon drivers, warehousemen, and accountants-involving a publishing house in the Swiss town of Neuchatel to bring this world to life. Like other places on the periphery of France, Switzerland was a hotbed of piracy, carefully monitoring the demand for certain kinds of books and finding ways of fulfilling it. Focusing in particular on the diary of Jean-François Favarger, a traveling sales rep for a Swiss firm whose 1778 voyage, on horseback and on foot, around France to visit bookstores and renew accounts forms the spine of this story, Darnton reveals not only how the industry worked and which titles were in greatest demand, but the human scale of its operations. A Literary Tour de France is literally that. Darnton captures the hustle, picaresque comedy, and occasional risk of Favarger's travels in the service of books, and in the process offers an engaging, immersive, and unforgettable narrative of book culture at a critical moment in France's history.

“Splendid. . . . [Darnton gives] us vivid, hard-won detail, illuminating narrative, and subtle, original insight.”—Timothy Garton Ash, New York Review of Books With his uncanny ability to spark life in the past, Robert Darnton re-creates three historical worlds in which censorship shaped literary expression in distinctive ways. In eighteenth-century France, censors, authors, and booksellers collaborated in making literature by navigating the intricate culture of royal privilege. Even as the king's censors outlawed works by Voltaire, Rousseau, and other celebrated Enlightenment writers, the head censor himself incubated Diderot’s great Encyclopedie by hiding the banned project’s papers in his Paris townhouse. Relationships at court trumped principle in the Old Regime. Shaken by the Sepoy uprising in 1857, the British Raj undertook a vast surveillance of every aspect of Indian life, including its literary output. Years later the outrage stirred by the British partition of Bengal led the Raj to put this knowledge to use. Seeking to suppress Indian publications that it deemed seditious, the British held hearings in which literary criticism led to prison sentences. Their efforts to meld imperial power and liberal principle fed a growing Indian opposition. In Communist East Germany, censorship was a component of the party program to engineer society. Behind the unmarked office doors of Ninety Clara-Zetkin Street in East Berlin, censors developed annual plans for literature in negotiation with high party officials and prominent writers. A system so pervasive that it lodged inside the authors’ heads as self-censorship, it left visible scars in the nation’s literature. By rooting censorship in the particulars of history, Darnton's revealing study enables us to think more clearly about efforts to control expression past and present.

This issue of Ideas in History encompasses a special issue on the history of economic thought, plus a provocative paper taking on issues of text, historiography and deconstructive thought in cultural history.

Balthasar Münter (1735-1793) is known primarily for being the spiritual advisor for Johann Friedrich Struensee in 1772. Münter is, however, generally interesting as a contributor to the theological development in Denmark-Norway in the eighteenth century, not least because he left a great number of theological texts to posterity. These texts are written in a public and political environment offering shifting conditions for the church. This present book analyses Münter's texts and sheds light on the extent to which he changes his preaching and teaching in accordance with the varying contextual conditions the church was given this period. The result is a textually oriented research work highlighting important theological texts which have not previously been the subject of scholarly investigation.