The Great Cat Massacre by Robert Darnton

The Great Cat Massacre by Robert Darnton

Regular price
Checking stock...
Regular price
Checking stock...
Zusammenfassung

Believing that historians should adopt anthropological methods in order to understand the "otherness" of previous eras, this volume analyzes a variety of sources, from grim peasant folklore to enlightenment philosophy, in order to show not merely what men and women thought, but why they thought it.

The feel-good place to buy books
  • Free delivery in the UK
  • Supporting authors with AuthorSHARE
  • 100% recyclable packaging
  • B Corp - kinder to people and planet
  • Buy-back with World of Books - Sell Your Books

The Great Cat Massacre by Robert Darnton

In Paris in the late 1730s an extraordinary event occurred. Two printing-shop apprentices rounded up the neighbourhood cats, including their mistress's favourite pet, and battered them to death. They then staged a mock trial and strung them from gallows, to riotous applause and much hilarity - something we find incomprehensible today. Was this a bizarre carnivalesque ritual? An act to ward off witchcraft? Or a workers' revolt against their tyrannical master? To try to enter the minds of ordinary people in 18th-century France and discover "the mental world of the unenlightened during the Enlightenment", Robert Darnton's engrossing, unusual history analyzes a rich variety of material, including the grim, earthy peasant sources of folk tales such as "Little Red Riding Hood"; a curious description of a city; and a policeman's secret dossier. His innovative ethnographic study shows us not just what people thought in the past, but how differently they viewed the world from us.
"* 'A brilliant work of popular history' - NEWSWEEK * 'Authoritative.. elegant and searching' - DAILY TELEGRAPH * 'A rich and splendid book' - Marghanita Laski"
Robert Darnton was born in New York in 1939 and was educated at Harvard (B.Phil., 1962) and Oxford (D.Phil., 1964). After working as a reporter on The New York Times, he returned to Harvard as a junior research fellow before moving to Princeton where he is Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History. Professor Darnton is the author of many books on French history.
SKU Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13 9780141390802
ISBN 10 0141390808
Titel The Great Cat Massacre
Autor Robert Darnton
Serie Penguin Classic History S
Buchzustand Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart Paperback
Verlag Penguin Books Ltd
Erscheinungsjahr 2001-06-28
Seitenanzahl 320
Hinweis auf dem Einband Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis Nicht verfügbar