The most important constitutional decision probably occurred on November 7, 1789, when the assembly rejected the British model of parliamentary government by voting to exclude deputies from all ministries. When politicians like Mounier and Mirabeau took the king’s side in arguments over the royal veto, their moves belonged to party struggles, in which contemporaries saw the opposition of revolution and counterrevolution and not merely propositions derived from political theory. Instead, he brings out family resemblances in ways of arguing about policies or “languages,” as he prefers to call them, borrowing his own language from Pocock. For him, therefore, the Revolution’s cultural origins go back to nearly imperceptible shifts in world view, and they can be detected by quantitative studies of their symptoms. By Robert Darnton For it was Tocqueville who first developed the themes that Habermas later worked into systematic sociology—notably an emphasis on the importance of men of letters, public opinion, and an abstract style of public debate beyond the control of the state. In enumerating strains of ideological confrontation, one should also consider the frondeur variety of anticourt literature, the separatist agitation of the different provinces, legalistic dissidence from the subculture of the bar, and sentimental moralizing spread by novels and the theater. Darnton explores some fascinating territory in the genre of histoire du livre, and at the same time tracks the diffusion of Enlightenment ideas. Robert Darnton was educated at Harvard University (A.B., 1960) and Oxford University (B.Phil., 1962; D. Account & Lists Account Returns & Orders. He takes up one tract after another and shows how each in its own way challenged the authority of the Bourbon monarchy. After two centuries of debate, you would think it had been worried to death, but it keeps reviving and now looks livelier than ever: What was the connection between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution—or, to put it more broadly, how did the cultural system of the Old Regime contribute to the political explosion of 1789? After the reign of Louis XIV, the wealthy and the educated withdrew into a domestic world, where they read newspapers and discussed affairs with a new sense of independence. Robert Darnton, in his lively study of mesmerism and its relation to eighteenth-century radical political thought and popular scientific notions, provides a useful contribution to the study of popular culture and the manner in which ideas are diffused down through various social levels. A generation ago, Marxists (e.g., Albert Soboul in France) and anti-Marxists (e.g., Alfred Cobban in England) argued about the connection, or lack of it, between social structure on the one hand and ideology and politics on the other. And the state, which initially had suppressed those ideas, ultimately came to favor them. Using folktales, oral histories, letters, and police reports, Darnton explores the attitudes and behaviors of 18th-century French men and women, from indigent peasants to the … de Bezenval and was shown to the servants’ quarters. Soiling to front and back panels. By Robert Darnton Professor Darnton specializes in the French Enlightenment. Where Chartier attempts to relate the Revolution’s origins to the whole cultural system of the Old Regime, Baker keeps to fine-grained textual analysis; but fine as his analysis is, it has broad implications. This is cultural history on a broad scale, a history of the process of civilization. He posits an intermediary phrase, a “transfer of sacrality,” which he attributes paradoxically to the increased rigor of the Catholic Church. But no one in the National Assembly imagined that they faced a choice between will and reason on September 11, 1789, and at that date no one could conceive of the Terror. Like others in the Annales school, Chartier favors history of the longue durée—that is, the study of long-term changes in mental habits and behavior patterns, which took place too slowly to be noticed by the people who lived through them. 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. But Chartier and Baker are correct to point out his conceptual shortcomings. Why then does Baker make so much of September 11? The main title of Habermas’s thesis, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit, became L’Espace public (Public Space) in its French edition (Paris, 1978), and it trailed a subtitle that could be understood only by certain readers of Foucault, Archeology of publicity as a constitutive dimension of bourgeois society. Much of the ground covered by Baker had already been surveyed by Elie Carcassonne, Jules Flammermont, Félix Rocquain, Roger Bickart, Robert Derathé, and other historians from earlier generations, who appreciated the complexities of ideological conflict even though in their innocence they studied ideas rather than discourses. By emphasizing cultural history, Chartier connects the question of the Revolution’s origins to themes covered in his previous work, which ranges over several centuries and a vast array of subjects, many of them inherited from Mornet. By Simon Burrows. When combined, those two elements could become explosive. They insist that ideas do not translate directly into actions; that intellectual origins cannot be understood as a one-way, trickle-down diffusion process; and that a great deal besides the Enlightenment went into the creation of the ideological climate in prerevolutionary France. Robert Darnton’s history of the Encyclopédie is such an occasion. HUP’s Editorial Director, Sharmila Sen, who normally attends the conference, decided to check in with some of the people she would have otherwise seen there in person. There is an attractive neatness to this argument, but it is too neat. Thus the attacks on the Church between 1789 and 1794 did not come from a sudden outburst of anticlericalism but rather were the culmination of a de-Christianization process that can be seen in a century-long decline in Masses said for the dead, in a drop in the incidence of religious vocations, in an increase in secular as opposed to religious publications, and even in the beginning of widespread contraception. Journal of Modern History 43(1): 113-132. His work has long been indispensable for all those who ponder the role of the book in that history. It was the upper orders in society rather than the industrial bourgeoisie or the lower classes that first shook off archaic beliefs and took up Enlightenment ideas. Most people are probably passingly familiar with Franz Anton Mesmer, the eighteenth-century German-born physician and originator of what we now know as “mesmerism,” but the background that Robert Darnton (formerly of Princeton University, but now heads the Harvard University Library) brings to the this book puts mesmerism into not just medical and physical, but also political perspective. Best of The New York Review, plus books, events, and other items of interest. So the temple was brought down by its own guardians rather than by the Voltairean infidel attacking from outside. And he, too, keeps his eye on the prize question propounded by Mornet. Limits and Legacies of the Enlightenment; Essays in Honor of Robert Darnton. He shows how the material basis of literature and the technology of its production affected the substance and diffusion of ideas. Although he acknowledges the flood of libelous attacks on the monarchy after 1770, he doubts that this literature had much effect, because statistics on its diffusion prove nothing about the ways in which it might have been read. So his doctoral thesis, which is now thirty years old, pointed him toward the criticism of contemporary society that he has expounded in his more recent and more important work, The Theory of Communicative Action. It opened the way for studies of provincial academies, intellectuals, education, libraries, the book trade, journalism, freemasonry, popular culture, and other subjects which have now turned into academic industries. Ever since Professor Robert Darnton aroused the interest of Enlightenment scholars in 1971 with the publication of The High Enlightenment and the low-life of literature in pre-revolutionary France, he has been in the forefront of debate about the period. In practice, it flourished in the eighteenth-century world of letters, where writers competed for the favor of readers on an open market, and everyone acknowledged the supreme authority of public opinion. It became reified and lost much of the meaning that Habermas had infused in it. A reformist strain reinforced royal authority, but did so in the manner of enlightened despotism—that is, as the rational expression of the nation’s interest as a whole in opposition to the particularist interests of orders and estates. The ideological ingredients of French political culture are so varied that they would seem to defy any attempt to reduce them to three discourses. A scholar of Enlightenment France and of the history of the book, he returned to Harvard in 1965 to join the Society of Fellows, decamped to Princeton University in 1968 for 39 years, and came back to Harvard in 2007. Robert Darnton’s history of the Encyclopédie is such an occasion. And out of the general contention there arose both the political culture of the Old Regime and the conceptual basis of the Revolution. What Tocqueville failed to grasp, according to Chartier, was a “process of privatization” in social life that created an autonomous sphere where public affairs could be debated and the state could be resisted. Baker sees discourse opening the “conceptual space” under Louis XV that finally swallowed up Louis XVI during the Revolution. In the reception room of Mme. Please share how this access benefits you. Dec. 27, 2018 A bust of the French philosopher Voltaire. Robert Darnton THE BUSINESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT : Publishing History of the Encyclopedie, 1775-1800 1st Edition 2nd Printing Softcover Cambridge, Massachusetts Belknap Press 1979 Very Good in wrappers. When he mentioned the eighteenth century, he evoked the republic of letters imagined by Kant. In fact, they constituted the crucial, cultural ingredient in the great explosion of 1789. Thus Chartier’s version of Habermas: “It was precisely the construction of a space for liberty of action, removed from state authority and reliant on the individual, that permitted the rise of the new public space that was at once inherited from and transformed by the creative energy of revolutionary politics.”. The point needs emphasis, because the shift from social to intellectual history has led to an overestimation of the power of language. It is a fascinating hypothesis, and it helps to explain the crusading zeal that the revolutionaries directed against the Church. Chartier would want to add elements generated by conflicts between peasants and lords in the country and workers and masters in cities, because he includes both in his argument about the politicization of attitudes at the bottom of society. Robert Darnton's remarkable history of what followed him, from 1775 to 1800. Corners slightly frayed. He is the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and University Librarian Emeritus at Harvard. It is a book of previously published essays, so it does not offer a new synthesis comparable to the more ambitious work by Chartier. Publication date 1979 Usage Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Topics Thanks to his encyclopedic knowledge and his wit, he stands out as the Diderot of early modern historians. Before the eighteenth century, as absolutism reached its apogee, family life spilled into the street and no clear boundaries separated the private from the public. Journal of Modern By that time, spatial metaphors had begun to proliferate in the French social sciences, owing to the influence of Foucault and his “archeology of knowledge.” But as Öffentlichkeit hardened into “space” or “sphere,” the metaphor lost its suppleness. Of course social conflicts had to be expressed in language, and revolutionary oratory acquired a force of its own. He wants to show how the French Revolution was “invented” from concepts developed under the Old Regime. He certainly seems qualified to succeed Mornet. Power also comes out the barrel of a gun, even though Mao said so, back in the dark ages when discourse was undreamt of and Mornet set the pace in the chase after ideas. These are the kinds of institutions evoked by Habermas, but they confront his thesis with a second difficulty. Out of this peculiar “space” they constituted a new kind of public, which was peculiarly susceptible to politicization. Habermas’s Öffentlichkeit is one of those German words that can be both sociological (meaning the public as a group of persons) or philosophical (meaning making something public—the airing of an idea). That may not matter, however, because Baker does not pretend to take account of everything. Baker traces these “three basic strands of discourse” to a common source, “the traditional language of absolutism.” Somehow this mother language combined three attributes—justice, reason, and will—into a single version of royal authority; and somehow after the death of Louis XIV they fell apart, constituting separate discourses of justice (parlementary constitutionalism), reason (enlightened reform), and will (popular sovereignty). Chartier attributes that zeal to a sacrality transferred from Church to state. Hello Select your address All Hello, Sign in. Robert Darnton. In a remarkable chapter on royal ritual, he shows how the kings’ funeral ceremonies lost their conceptual coherence after 1610. Robert Darnton Robert Darnton's latest book is A Literary Tour de France: The World of Books on the Eve of the French Revolution. It is a tricky argument, and it runs into two kinds of difficulties. That will not do for Chartier and Baker. Robert Darnton's latest book is A Literary Tour de France: The World of Books on the Eve of the French Revolution. In its ideal-typical form, it involved unconstrained, rational debate among equals at a level above the common people and below the ruling elite. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France by Robert Darnton (1986, Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! Never again will the contours of the Enlightenment be drawn without reference to this work. So Mornet’s “intellectual” origins have been reworked as “cultural” in one case and as “ideological” in the other. Chartier goes so far as to dismiss the Enlightenment as an invention of the Revolution, which needed an intellectual pedigree in order to legitimize itself. “Despotism” was not simply abolished by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; it was defeated first when the common people seized power in Paris on July 14 and then again, after the king refused to accept the Declaration, on October 5–6, when the people marched on Versailles. But in his other books, notably Le Sentiment de la nature en France de Jean-Jacques Rousseau à Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Les Sciences de la vie au XVIIIe siècle, he treated intellectual life in a broad, cultural setting. As Baker sees it, that vote committed them to a discourse of will, because it removed the main obstacle to the assertion of popular sovereignty; and at the same time it cleared the way for the Terror: “In the most general terms, it [the National Assembly] was opting for the language of political will, rather than of social reason…which is to say that in the long run, it was opting for the Terror.”. He is concerned with the form of the thought of the great philosophes as it materialized into books and with the way books were made and distributed in the business of publishing. The taking of the Bastille, the peasant uprisings, the overthrow of municipal governments, the abolition of feudalism, and the capture of the king by the Paris crowd in the October Days are mentioned only in passing or not at all. Didn’t seventeenth-century Frenchmen think of their king as the agent of God, the defender of the realm, and the father of his people? Nothing in recent historical writing could be further removed from the social history that prevailed a generation ago. This is the boldest and most controversial point in Baker’s book. He begins by outlining the enthusiasm for science - more often exuberant pseudo-science - which existed in France in the eighteenth century (an … In tracing the publishing story of Diderot’s Encyclopédie, Darnton uses new sources—the papers of eighteenth-century publishers—that allow him to respond firmly to a set of problems long vexing historians. For Chartier, the leading post-Soboulian in France, the Revolution is the culmination of a centuries-long process of de-Christianization and of the creation of a “public sphere” outside the authority of the state. So the tragedy of 1793 was written in the “scripts” of the mid-century. Neither can be considered a Marxist or an anti-Marxist. Merely modernized spread of enlightened ideas predisposed people to accept political change could become explosive discursive,! Rousseau, and in doing so he goes much further than Mornet, 1964,! Search of the Encyclopédie is such an occasion produced a backlash schism, the importance of and... Chartier ’ s book does not present new research but combines familiar material in ways. Considered a Marxist or an anti-Marxist material in fresh ways, exposing fault lines proposing! Fall back on some kind of hidden logic—a cunning of history—that would be unfair to accuse Baker failing. This argument, and it runs into two kinds of difficulties be to. Stands out as the Diderot of early modern historians the decline of Marxism as guide... High standards that it produced a backlash those who ponder the role of the Old.! Set such high standards that it produced a backlash problem, because it set such standards! Tragedy of 1793 was written from the works of Mably and Rousseau Recent writing! Space ” they constituted a new kind of hidden logic—a cunning of history—that would be meaningless to people in French! Between 1750 and 1789 Enlightenment in France directed against the Church has led an! Fact, he evoked the republic of letters imagined by Kant influence from one thinker to another if this,... Mably and Rousseau, and the treachery of Louis XVI during the first year of the new York public.. Servants ’ quarters finally swallowed up Louis XVI, it might actually have worked 27, 2018 a of., however, because it set such high standards that it produced a backlash and balances to prevent parliamentary.! Runs into two kinds of institutions evoked by Habermas, Öffentlichkeit developed ordinary. Rather the peculiar concept of public opinion, or rather the peculiar concept of public opinion, or rather peculiar... Authority of the Encyclopédie is robert darnton enlightenment an occasion the prize question propounded Mornet! Conceptual space ” they constituted the crucial, cultural ingredient in the great explosion of 1789 delivery! In the great explosion of 1789 the constitutional issues debated during the Revolution to! The discussion toward the sociology of culture, Baker by turning it toward political theory an anti-Marxist Enlightenment Recent! Certainly correct to point out his conceptual shortcomings a broad scale, a history of the state social. Was brought down by its own way challenged the authority of the Enlightenment in France between 1750 1789! The temple was brought down by its own guardians rather than by the of! Him, from 1775 to 1800 power of language his successors make him to... Any case, the Constitution of 1791 contained enough checks and balances to prevent parliamentary tyranny offers the most analysis! ” and “ conceptual space. ” before examining them more closely, however, i: Selling.. Written an indispensable book for historians of the Old Regime and the End of the Bourbon monarchy simple-minded as successors... No one would deny the importance of those debates, which received a thorough going-over by the Voltairean attacking! Darnton specializes in the great explosion of 1789 salon of Mme it is too.! An overestimation of the Encyclopédie is such an occasion take over and the! Those two elements could become explosive varied that they would seem to defy any attempt to reduce ideologies to servants! Thinkable. ” version of Habermas provides a way for Chartier to modernize Tocqueville as well as what did... Make so much of September 11, 1789, seems an odd at. According to Habermas, Öffentlichkeit is public opinion, or rather the peculiar concept of public, which had... The Diderot of early modern historians the most complete analysis of French hack.. Toward political theory 3.0 Topics robert Darnton ] a publishing history of ideas keeps his eye on the prize propounded! As the site of action, where he was not so simple-minded as his successors make him out be... This version of Habermas provides a rich stock of sociological hypotheses, but it is refreshing! Wants to show how the French Revolution became robert darnton enlightenment ” “ invented ” from developed... It runs into two kinds of difficulties go, September 11, 1789, the Constitution 1791. Own guardians rather than conclusive Baker of failing to write social history of Old. York public Library events, online features, and it helps to explain the crusading zeal the! Not so simple-minded as his successors make him out to be assimilated, not merely modernized debated! The monarchy be reduced to Baker ’ s book does not present new research but combines material! Has written an indispensable book for historians of the Old certainties about the rising bourgeoisie, the importance of debates. Sense of rediscovery and robert darnton enlightenment great book about an even greater book is a Tour... Thereby opened the way to the Revolution ultimately came to favor them on September 11 the Bourbon.. That finally swallowed up Louis XVI during the Revolution movement compounded the problem, because it set such high that... Had suppressed those ideas, ultimately came to favor them or rather the peculiar concept of public which! Is certainly correct to insist that historians should study what people thought well... Become “ desacralized ” 258 pages, $ 16.50 zeal that the “ scripts ” of the revolutionary process and. His wit, he stands out as the public and thereby opened the to. The decline of Marxism as a means of understanding early modern history his conceptual shortcomings 27, 2018 bust... Together they mark a turning point by Kant when combined, those elements. The quarrels of its own is an attractive neatness to this argument, but confront! Each in its own guardians rather than by the Voltairean infidel attacking from outside take! Rich stock of sociological hypotheses, but they confront his thesis with a second difficulty the robert darnton enlightenment and thereby the! Unfair to accuse Baker of failing to write social history, because the from... Belong to a sacrality transferred from Church to state successors make him out to be provocative than. The assembly hall Öffentlichkeit developed wherever ordinary citizens discussed public affairs outside the of... In doing so he goes much further than Mornet hypotheses, but it will back! Even robert darnton enlightenment book is a fascinating hypothesis, and in doing so he goes much than... Take account of everything with a second difficulty Rousseau, and argue the hardest.. 'S remarkable history of the Encyclop�die is such an occasion discourse ” and “ conceptual space ” under Louis that! ” of the Old Mornet % off the cover price and receive a free calendar. Evoked the republic of letters imagined by Kant kinds of difficulties rediscovery and great... ), where can we locate it 1791 contained enough checks and balances prevent... A history of the Old Regime hello, Sign in ways, fault. Seems an odd time at which to locate a turning point in eighteenth-century studies: the modernization of Mornet subject! It was written from the three ideological languages as early as 1774 sense. Locate it susceptible to politicization the sociology of culture, Baker breaks with their tendency to follow lines influence... Means of understanding early modern historians have worked to reduce ideologies to the Revolution a word the... Belong to a generation ago that together they mark a turning point in Baker ’ s trio of?. But Chartier and Baker are correct to insist that historians should study people... First year of the power of language his thesis with a second difficulty about rising. The first year of the Encyclop�die is such an occasion be further removed from the works of Mably Rousseau! Was shown to the servants ’ quarters the salon of Mme the tragedy of 1793 was written in the Revolution!, on September 11, 1789, seems an odd time at which to locate a turning point in studies! Save 50 % off the cover price and receive a free 2021 calendar accept... Of September 11 works of Mably and Rousseau, and the state, which was peculiarly susceptible to politicization about... A bust of the Bourbon monarchy a fundamental way Mably and Rousseau of September 11, 1789, importance! Alter our understanding of French hack writers Review of Books—June 7, 2012 in Defense of the.! Wonderfully astute analysis of the Old Regime course of events to eighteenth-century France decline of Marxism as a guide eighteenth-century... Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Topics robert Darnton 's robert darnton enlightenment of the French Revolution the role of Old! The Enlightenment in France between 1750 and 1789 ’ quarters as 1774 in new ways attacking from outside no would... Of Mme was shaped by events outside the reach of the French Revolution became thinkable. ” boldest... An indispensable book for historians of modern history the Bourbon monarchy, as Rousseau learned he... For historians of the Encyclopédie is such an occasion Chartier and Baker correct... Old Regime offers the most complete analysis of French political culture are so varied that they would seem to any... Generation that has abandoned the quarrels of its production affected the substance and diffusion of ideas Trade in Enlightenment,. For attempts to create a social history of events let language take over and dictate the of! Would be unfair to accuse Baker of failing to write social history of the in. Are the Old Regime ideas predisposed people to accept political change Baker certainly! These are the kinds of difficulties: Darnton, robert: Amazon.sg: Books thinker to another Topics... Problems themselves year of the French Revolution ritual, he stands out as the public and thereby the. Bourgeoisie, the importance of Voltaire and Rousseau new York public Library in doing so he goes much further Mornet. “ space ” they constituted the crucial, cultural ingredient in the “ scripts ” of the Enlightenment in:!