The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History
May 2009 · Sold by Basic Books
4.3star
3 reviews
Ebook
320
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
About this ebook
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.
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.
Ratings and reviews
4.3
3 reviews
About the author
A former professor of European history at Princeton University, Robert Darnton is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and director of the Harvard University Library. The founder of the Guttenberg-e program, he is the author of many books. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
