The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 17481789

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A brilliant account of the coming of the French Revolution, and the culminating work of this most distinguished historian When a Parisian crowd stormed the Bastille in July 1789, it triggered the overthrow of the monarchy and the birth of a new society. In retrospect we understand the French Revolution as the outcome of such factors as a faltering economy and Enlightenment thought. But what did the Parisians themselves think they were doing - how did they understand their world In this dazzling history, Robert Darnton draws on decades of study to conjure a past as vivid as today's news. He explores eighteenth-century Paris as an information society like our own, its news circuits centered in cafes, park benches, and under the Palais-Royal's Tree of Cracow. Through pamphlets, gossip, and public performances, the events of some forty years - from disastrous treaties and royal debauchery to thrilling hot-air balloon ascents - entered the churning collective consciousness of ordinary Parisians. With public trust eroding as new aspirations soared, Parisians prepared themselves for revolution.

Reviews

Standing at the summit of Robert Darnton's towering intellectual career, THE REVOLUTIONARY TEMPER plunges the reader into the coffeeshops, workrooms, and alleys of pre-revolutionary Paris. Following the traces of songs and rumors, insults and discontent, Darnton allows us to eavesdrop, almost miraculously, on whispers nearly two and a half centuries old. Here is the hivemind of ordinary people in extraordinary times, as they shake loose the thought and feeling of ages and past, and decide -- slowly, and then all at once -- to begin the world anew. -- Jane Kamensky, author of A REVOLUTION IN COLOR
What did Parisians think and gossip, sing and obsess about over the decades before the storming of the Bastille In The Revolutionary Temper Robert Darnton paints a sumptuous mural of the eighteenth-century mind. With the Encyclopdie, with manned balloons in the air, reason seemed on a roll. With posters, pamphlets, and public readings, the written world appeared supreme. A few vicious libels, some stock market manipulation, a lurid adultery trial, one notorious diamond necklace, any number of court intrigues, skyrocketing bread prices and plunging temperatures combined, among other elements, to shake a nation to its core. A rich, beautifully crafted book that plants the reader in a Paris that feels at all times electric. -- Stacy Schiff, author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
Standing at the summit of Robert Darnton's towering intellectual career, The Revolutionary Temper plunges the reader into the coffeeshops, workrooms, and alleys of pre-revolutionary Paris. Following the traces of songs and rumors, insults and discontent, Darnton allows us to eavesdrop, almost miraculously, on whispers nearly two and a half centuries old. Here is the hivemind of ordinary people in extraordinary times, as they shake loose the thought and feeling of ages and past, and decide -- slowly, and then all at once -- to begin the world anew. -- Jane Kamensky, author of A Revolution in Color
The Revolutionary Temper is more than a historical account of a city at war with a regime; it is a hymn to the power of hope. Darnton's sparkling prose and unique eye for the human detail in every complex situation is in full force here. This is his best work yet. -- Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire: An Epic History of Two Nations Divided
Distilling a lifetime's immersion in the literary world of pre-revolutionary France, Robert Darnton's long-awaited final verdict on the Revolution's origins lays out in vivid detail how the minds of Parisians were prepared to contemplate the collapse of the regime under which they lived. With unmatched knowledge of the sources for metropolitan opinion as the monarchy stumbled into ever-deeper crises, he shows how confidence ebbed away from established ways and institutions and how by 1789 Parisians were ready for everything to be recast. A final chapter surveys the unprecedented scale and enduring importance of the Revolution that followed. -- William Doyle, author of The Oxford History of the French Revolution

Author Bio

Robert Darnton is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and University Librarian, Emeritus, Harvard University. The author of acclaimed, widely translated works in French history, he is a scholar of global stature, a Chevalier in the Legion d'Honneur and winner of the National Humanities Medal. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.