Chronicles of Killing Cats · Dredging French Cultural History

Author: Robert Darnton [USA]
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-04-01
Features: In the 1730s, a group of printing apprentices in Paris initiated a revolutionary cat-slaying ritual, torturing and killing all the cats they could find, including their master's pet cat. How could such a cruel ritual seem "funny" to them? Darnton explores hidden historical truths and the state of the human psyche in the shadows of non-authoritative texts: a "complete" survey of the city by a middle-class citizen, an extraordinary file preserved by a detective, the preface to the Encyclopédie, and the evaluation of the best-selling author Rousseau by a contemporary reader. This book examines the way of thinking in 18th-century France. It attempts not only to state what people thought but also how they thought—how they made sense of the world, gave meaning, and infused it with emotion. This line of inquiry is called "mental history" in France, also known as "cultural history," as it treats one's own civilization in the same way anthropologists study foreign cultures. It is the history observed with meticulous attention by "ethnography." Under the author's writing strategy of essays with a strong literary interest, readers are guaranteed an enriching and enjoyable reading experience.