The Business of Enlightenment by Robert Darnton
Darnton explores some fascinating territory in the genre of histoire du livre and tracks the diffusion of Enlightenment ideas. 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.
Publishing history, as told by Professor Darnton, turns out to be much meatier and livelier than might be expected…[This book is] a major achievement of American scholarship and in the first rank of those which have been transforming our view of French history during the last twenty years* New York Review of Books *
Darnton’s book succeeds brilliantly in illuminating the nature of late eighteenth-century encyclopedism and its use of science, in tracing the history of the most important book of the century, in revealing the lives of printers, masters, publishers, and even, to some extent, readers. This is an extraordinary achievement and Darnton has produced a book that possesses all the qualities of a classic. The Encyclopédie deserves nothing less, and it has indeed found a historian worthy of its reputation. * Isis *
The story [Darnton] has to tell is a fascinating one, teased from a complex and obscure documentation with great finesse, told with elegance, wit, and a novelist’s eye for detail, analyzed for its historical implications with clarity and insight. * Journal of Modern History *
Darnton’s book succeeds brilliantly in illuminating the nature of late eighteenth-century encyclopedism and its use of science, in tracing the history of the most important book of the century, in revealing the lives of printers, masters, publishers, and even, to some extent, readers. This is an extraordinary achievement and Darnton has produced a book that possesses all the qualities of a classic. The Encyclopédie deserves nothing less, and it has indeed found a historian worthy of its reputation. * Isis *
The story [Darnton] has to tell is a fascinating one, teased from a complex and obscure documentation with great finesse, told with elegance, wit, and a novelist’s eye for detail, analyzed for its historical implications with clarity and insight. * Journal of Modern History *
Robert Darnton is the author of numerous award-winning books on French cultural history, including The Revolutionary Temper. A MacArthur Fellow, chevalier in the Légion d’honneur, and winner of the National Humanities Medal and the National Book Critics Circle Award, he is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library, Emeritus, at Harvard University.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780674087866 |
| ISBN 10 | 0674087860 |
| Title | The Business of Enlightenment |
| Author | Robert Darnton |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Harvard University Press |
| Year published | 1987-01-01 |
| Number of pages | 638 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |