The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748-1789

by Robert Darnton

A groundbreaking account of the coming of the French Revolution from a historian of worldwide acclaim. When a Parisian crowd stormed the Bastille in July 1789, it triggered an event of global the overthrow of the monarchy and the birth of a new society. Most historians account for the French Revolution by viewing it in retrospect as the outcome of underlying conditions such as a faltering economy, social tensions, or the influence of Enlightenment thought. But what did Parisians themselves think they were doing―how did they understand their world? What were the motivations and aspirations that guided their actions? In this dazzling history, Robert Darnton addresses these questions by drawing on decades of close study to conjure a past as vivid as today’s news. He explores eighteenth-century Paris as an information society much like our own, its news circuits centered in cafés, on park benches, and under the Palais-Royal’s Tree of Cracow. Through pamphlets, gossip, underground newsletters, and public performances, the events of some forty years―from disastrous treaties, official corruption, and royal debauchery to thrilling hot-air balloon ascents and new understandings of the nation―all entered the churning collective consciousness of ordinary Parisians. As public trust in royal authority eroded and new horizons opened for them, Parisians prepared themselves for revolution. Darnton’s authority and sure judgment enable readers to confidently navigate the passions and complexities of controversies over court politics, Church doctrine, and the economy. And his compact, luminous prose creates an immersive reading experience. Here is a riveting narrative that succeeds in making the past a living presence. 16 pages of illustrations

Genres: History, France, Nonfiction, French Revolution, European History, Politics, Historical

576 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library

Reviews

[Douglas Girardot · Rating 5 out of 5]

I studied 18th-century France in college, and I read some of Darnton’s work before. But what a pleasure it was, with my undergrad years behind me, to really take the time to savor this book.

Darnton uses on-the-ground sources to give a sense of how Parisians of different social classes reacted to the turbulent political climate of the latter half of the 1700s. The book provides a big-picture history that is ornamented with — or, arguably, pillared on — the minute observations of diarists, pamphleteers, and proto-journalists.

Even though you know how the story ends in 1789, it never feels inevitable while reading “The Revolutionary Temper.” Through his prose (which is finely crafted and at times even beautiful), Darnton hits home the fact that nothing about the storming of the Bastille was destined to happen, and he emphasizes how unthinkable the Revolution was in the years leading up to it.

Darnton sets out his argument in fuller terms in an informative bibliographic essay at the end (and also in an oblique introduction, the book’s only disappointment). But regardless of what you think about his reading of events, “The Revolutionary Temper” is a delightful and informative read.

[History Today]

The Tree of Cracow was a huge chestnut tree that stood in the northern part of the gardens of the Palais-Royal at the heart of Paris in the years before the French Revolution. Beneath its branches newsmongers gathered daily to dispense the news, ancien régime style, by word of mouth. It was part of an information system – a sort of 18th-century equivalent to social media – and much like its modern counterpart it bristled with rumour, speculation, conspiracy theories and questionable assertions. Under a regime that censored politics, religion and morals, the Palais-Royal occupied a privileged space. It belonged to the Duke of Orléans, a cousin of Louis XVI, and one of the wealthiest men in France. The precincts of the Palais-Royal housed shops, theatres, cafes, gambling dens, printing presses and sellers of books and pamphlets, but Orléans had jurisdiction over the site, which meant that the police could not raid its bookstalls or scour its cafes for undesirables. As the trade in clandestine books and unfettered news thrived, it became a centre for the exchange of ideas. And, in the late 18th century, it became the birthplace of the French Revolution.

No one is better placed to uncover this world and bring it to life than Robert Darnton, a historian who emerged from a background in journalism at the New York Times to write a series of pathbreaking studies on 18th-century literature and the cultural impact of the Enlightenment that have inspired a generation of historians. The Revolutionary Temper is the culmination of Darnton’s output and, like all his works, it is very readable. It reveals the reactions of ordinary Parisians to political developments, from the mid-18th century to the storming of the Bastille in July 1789. Politics was the business of the king and his ministers, conducted behind closed doors in the form of power struggles between factions of rival courtiers, ministers and royal mistresses. For ordinary Parisians, excluded from the privileged world of Versailles, concrete information was lacking, sowing doubt and, therefore, speculation and wild rumour. Occasionally politics circumvented censorship – often with the connivance of disaffected courtiers – and spilled onto the streets of Paris.

Darnton provides a sweeping account of succeeding events from the Parisian perspective, encompassing disastrous wars, struggles over Enlightenment ideas, fights for religious toleration and crazes for all manner of new phenomena, such as hot air balloons and mesmerism. He reveals this story through evocative sources, including pamphlets, libel cases, judicial memoirs and songs – the latter particularly dangerous, because they reached down through every stratum of society, including the poor and illiterate.

Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.

Marisa Linton is Professor Emerita of History at Kingston University. Her latest book is Terror: The French Revolution and Its Demons (Polity, 2021).

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

How did news and information circulate in eighteenth-century Paris? And how did Parisians respond to that information? What kinds of narratives caught their attention? And how did those circulating narratives shape and reshape their understanding of the world and of politics? Starting with these questions, Darnton discusses the decades leading up to the outbreak of revolution in 1789. The book isn't really about the revolution at all (though he does have a chapter at the end that discusses the revolutionary consequences of the patterns he analyses), but about the preparing of the revolutionary ground. And he suggests at the end how revolutionary violence can break out after long periods of rising tensions, how single threads of frustration and corruption and anger and disorder and resentment can suddenly come together in a revolutionary rope that shocks and suprises everyone at the time but that in retrospect seems almost inevitable.

[Shaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very absorbing way of looking at history, it tries to use the information that was available to people in Paris in the decades before the French revolution and their reactions to that information to give us a glimpse at events from a somewhat different direction than the usual. I thought there was a lot here and I enjoyed putting pieces together along with the book.

[Turner Main · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who jokingly claims French ancestry, I had a great time diving into “my” history through Darnton’s account of the years leading up to the French Revolution.

Darnton excels at taking seemingly minor (and sometimes major) events from 1748 onward and showing how they fed into the broader revolutionary “temper” that culminated in 1789. I especially loved how he wove in songs and poems of the time — a vivid reminder of how everyday Parisians expressed and spread their frustrations. His use of newspapers and popular pamphlets also gives modern readers a sense of what it was like to live in Paris at the time.

That said, the scope is ambitious. Covering such a wide span sometimes made the book feel disjointed, and I occasionally lost track of how certain threads tied into the larger picture. In the latter half, Darnton leaned heavily on one diarist, Simeon-Prosper Hardy, and while his voice is great, I wished for more variety — something closer to Rick Atkinson’s approach in The British Are Coming.

Still, this was a lively and often amusing read. The Parisians’ flair for the dramatic is on full display: at one point, they staged a mock trial and execution of Calonne’s rebuttal to Necker’s reforms. It’s moments like this that made me laugh and reminded me how human history can be.

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly unique way of narrating history!
This book is about experiencing Paris from 1748 till the revolution of 1789 through the eyes of the population, the typical Parisian.


The first chapters explain this colorful mixture of ways by which the Parisians were keeping themselves informed
They were getting their news from the local cafe, the market, the place where they were buying food, from theaters performing satirical plays regarding the king, ministers , counts, dutchesses etc.

These chapters are very important as we see the gradul decline of public opinion regarding the monarchy and its constitutive bodies throughout the second part of the 18 century, the sinusoid of joys, and fears regarding incoming events, the hope and fears of the they generated .

We see immediately how these news were getting disseminated and received and how they evolved. They could get launched and expanded by being published in papers, performed in plays, in ballads and songs (mostly about the king's depravity).
The news could be about trials, Bastille incarcerations, scandals, bread price increasing, stock market crash, adultery by the king, ministry doing his predations.


It is a comprehensive book which cant really be summarised easily since it covers the society as a whole: the monarchy, the regime, the administration, the 'Grands' (high society) , the Commune (low class people) and most importantly how the idea of a Nation came to be , how the majority of people became aware of their importance within the state's matters. And once they did there was no turning back.

Superb !

[Johannes S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant account of how a revolutionary temper was fostered over the decades before the French revolution. It's not so much a political or economic history, but taking stock of the discussions and pamphleteering of ideas and news that prepared a mind space in Parisisans to revolt against despotism. Superbly written, long and exhaustive, but so much to ponder on. Recommend it all the way

[JR Roach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gripping and well-told narrative, but does not quite live up to the promise of depicting the decentralized "information society" of mid to late eighteenth century Paris. Events are often summarized at a high level of generality, with crowds operating as impersonal masses and Paris treated as a singular entity. Darnton relies on a few exceptional voices, especially Simeon-Prosper Hardy's journal, to stand in for the whole city, and as a result I was surprised in how much the narrative lacked texture, color, and specificity. I enjoyed getting a story of the major cultural and political controversies of the end of the old regime from the perspective of Paris as a city, but I ultimately learned less than I thought I would at the start of the introduction. A great book, but not one that I think makes a great historiographic contribution (and some of its emphases, especially on desacralization, are outdated).

[Brad Zadrozny · Rating 4 out of 5]

My biggest critique of this book, a common one I have for Historical non-fiction, is that the writing could get lost in its own academic language/tone at times, distracting from the rich story.

With that being said, this book is worth the read for the way it analyzes Parisian sentiment strictly through the literature of the day. A unique and entertaining way to understand the revolutionary sentiment and process of the time.

[Jim Richardson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was just too much deep detail about various aspects of French thought and politics to keep my interest. I quit after 135 pages.

[erica ☀︎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ultimately, I would rate this a strong 3.8. There is no doubt about the general consensus that this book is brilliant; however, with any book, this book comes with its strengths and its weaknesses. A major let down, and this (in my opinion) book's biggest weakness is its length. Whilst most chapters are essential in understanding what led to the attitudes surrounding France in the 18th century, some chapters essentially drone on for far too long, hammering home points that were exhausted in the previous chapters.

Please do not let me be misunderstood, this book is fantastic for the economic, philosophical, social, and political understanding of 18th century France and the attitudes and (like the title says) the tempers that led up to the rebellion - it serves its purpose in this regard, but also over-serves its purpose in that it goes too in depth in particular chapters about particular events, which makes it a tedious, exhaugsting, and an overwhelming read at times. I found that towards the final stretches of the book (10 chapters until the end) the reading felt extremely laborious, and I felt that I was re-reading the events and factors of the previous chapters in an entirely new chapter. Perhaps this could all be because this is my first proper read of anything solely historical, as I have thus far ventured exclusively in literary fiction up until this point to some extent, but I do feel that my point still stands. Perhaps to counter the sense of exhaustion, reading in doses would've resulted in a higher rating on my end. A lesson for next time!

Regardless, as mentioned before, this book does not fail in serving its purpose in creating a general and well-informed telescopic insight into the attitudes of France in the 18th century, and everything that led up to the events that occurred in 1789!

[Dominique Staryak-Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting reframing of the French Revolution. Shows how failure after failure of a government will affect the people. Shows how scandals became more and more political. And dang did the French love their scandals. History looks quite different from the eyes of the everyday folk.

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Ancien Regime, as the French ruling class was known in 18th-century France, always sounds like such an immovable force. It speaks of arbitrary power, stiffened with protocol, girded by gold, topped by a dusting of icing sugar (something we all enjoy about France today) and utterly stuck in its ways. Until, that is, revolution arrived in 1789 with a clap of thunder to reset the clock so that everything could start over. Yet, as is shown in this book, the last 50 years of old France were in fact febrile and shifting, rocked by a series of social and political affairs that reached far beyond elite circles, engaging men and women who were more used to worrying whether the cost of bread would rise by another two sous--which of course it did, and that was also in the mix.
The author labels this new flexible mood the “revolutionary temper”, by which he doesn’t simply mean that the French people eventually became so cross that they embarked on a program of violent protest that led to the guillotining of the king and queen in 1793. Rather, he is referring to a frame of mind that was shifting. The role of food prices is not fully fleshed out in here, which is a pity because it sounds like there were some climactic factors that led to severe weather and crop failure that might have been a harbinger of the future (or maybe not). Instead he suggests that between the end of the war of the Austrian succession in 1748 and the storming of the Bastille in 1789, the French population underwent a series of convulsions, some as molten as others were icy, which resulted in a subtle but powerful molecular shift. After 500 years of rigidity, it made anything seem possible. Edmund Burke's 'Reflections on the French Revolution', published in 1790, posits that unlike America, the French were not ready for democracy, whereas this author focuses on the things that boiled over rather than why ultimately the whole thing collapsed on itself.

[Brad Eastman · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a grade school kid in the '70s, like all American children of the day I knew that Mikey died when his stomach exploded from eating pop rocks and Pepsi together. This was the days before the internet, social media, even cable tv. The only national media were the network news shows, but they did not report on Mikey's alleged death, nor would seven year old me have listened anyway. How did the same myth spread so widely and so far geographically. A question that has always amazed me. Mr. Darnton looks at the widely held opinions of Parisians in the 18th century leading up to the storming of the Bastille. He looks into a fundamental question of history - how do crowds with a single purpose develop? We all know how Twitter and Facebook play a part in the Arab Spring or the Orange Revolution, but how did the crowds of revolutionary Paris come together and act in unison?

Had I written this review after the first 100 pages, I would have panned it, but as the book goes on, Mr. Darnton weaves disparate strands into a masterful tapestry of the radicalization of ordinary Parisians. Mr. Darnton does not focus on factual occurrences, rather he focuses on how events were made know to Parisians and then how they were spread through public consciousness. Rumor is just as important to Mr. Darnton, provided it circulated widely. Mr. Darnton flushes out the information culture of Mid-Eighteenth century Paris by looking at secret police reports, pamphlets, unsanctioned newspapers and posters. In particular, Mr. Darnton makes use of songs that Parisians sang about current events (the Twitter of the day) as reported in contemporary journals and secret police reports.

The early Parisians received reports through these unsanctioned and unreliable channels about foreign wars, court politics and scandals. Much of the early chapters revolve around scandalous news cycles that were more salacious than political. At times the stories feel disjointed. Individually they are interesting essays, but they don't really cohere in a central thesis. By the conclusion, Mr. Darnton weaves the central themes of each of these episodes into a radicalization of ordinary citizens and a consciousness that the institutions of the day were delegitimized. He notes how widespread knowledge of scandals became more and more political and more and more understood as a failure of all of the institutions of the day.

Reading this book in the months before Trump v. Biden II is chilling. One cannot help but think of the way diametrically opposed narratives spread in 21st Century America. How humor and sarcasm fade into violence. How constant criticism of institutions and challenging of all authority event
usally leads to loss of all legitimacy. Of course, things are different today than in 18th Century Paris. We have inflation, but it has not led to mass hunger. We have better ways of counteracting rumor with truth. Nevertheless, the sense of foundations crumbling in the book reflects very much in reading or watching news today.

One footnote - Mr. Darnton notes in his acknowledgements that the germ of this book began in his doctoral thesis in 1964 (three years before I was born). That blew me away. I went and looked Mr. Darnton up on Wikipedia. He was born in 1939. This book was published at the end of 2023 when Mr. Darnton was 83. I view my similarly aged parents and am amazed at Mr. Darnton's capabilities as an octogenarian! At least I can draw comfort from his capabilities when I think of my choices for President in the election this fall.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book offers a convincing and sophisticated survey of the intellectual, cultural, and social undercurrents that shaped Paris in the decades leading up to the French Revolution. Well-known for his groundbreaking work in the history of ideas and print culture, Darnton once again demonstrates his mastery of the craft by interlacing together a vivid tapestry of the Enlightenment's influence on pre-revolutionary France. The author situates his narrative in the vivacious streets and salons of 18th-century Paris, a city teeming with philosophical debates, secret publications, and political ferment. The book investigates into the interplay between Enlightenment thinkers and the broader societal forces they helped unleash. Rather than focusing solely on luminaries like Voltaire and Rousseau, Darnton widens the lens to include the lesser-known pamphleteers, underground booksellers, and readers whose voices fueled revolutionary sentiment. Through meticulous archival research, Darnton reconstructs the intellectual networks and reading habits of the era, offering fresh insights into the circulation of ideas. His analysis of the clandestine book trade, particularly the role of forbidden texts in undermining the monarchy's authority, is both illuminating and thoroughly engaging. One of the book's central themes is the democratization of ideas. Darnton explores how Enlightenment philosophy, initially confined to elite circles, gradually permeated the public sphere, catalyzing a broader cultural transformation. His nuanced method avoids reducing the Revolution to a mere spin-off of Enlightenment ideology, instead emphasizing the multifaceted interrelations between economic privation, political dishonesty, and intellectual uproar. Darnton's writing is accessible yet richly detailed, harmonizing scholarly rigor with a narrative style that captures the vibrancy of the period. His ability to connect micro-histories—such as the lives of individual printers or booksellers—to macro-historical trends is particularly impressive. Readers will come away with a deeper understanding of how cultural shifts at the grassroots level helped shape one of history's most transformative events. One of the book's strengths is its vivid portrayal of Paris as a self-motivated cultural hub. Darnton’s metaphors of the bustling book trade, secret meetings, and street-level politics bring the city to life. His emphasis on the "history from below" approach adds a dimension often missing from traditional narratives of the French Revolution. However, the book’s ambitious scope occasionally leads to moments of overreach. While Darnton excels at connecting cultural history to broader political developments, some readers might find the sheer volume of detail overwhelming. Moreover, those seeking a complete overview of the Revolution's causes might find the book's focus on Parisian intellectual life somewhat narrow. The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748-1789 is a superbly surfaced and thought-provoking input to the history of the French Revolution. Darnton’s examination of the association between Enlightenment thought and the socio-political currents of pre-revolutionary Paris offers valuable insights for historians and general readers alike. While not without its challenges, the book stands as a testament to Darnton’s enduring ability to illuminate the complexities of history. For anyone intrigued by the intellectual ferment of the Enlightenment and its revolutionary consequences, this book is an essential read.

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Revolutionary Temper," a new book by the legendary Robert Darnton, deals almost exclusively with primary sources, and uses a long series of (mostly) very short chapters to narrate four decades of news cycles that captured the attention of Paris in the generation or so before the French Revolution. In the beginning, these episodes seem unrelated to one another, and by the 1780s, the narrative thread grows stronger as the story becomes one with the Causes of the French Revolution.

The chapters include episodes of panics over bread prices, spectacles over hot air balloons, intrigues about Louis XV's mistresses, a brouhaha over rumored trafficking of children to Mississippi, royal embarrassment over fizzled firework displays, swooning over Rousseau's novels, dancing through the night when America wins its Revolutionary War, hubbub over a best-selling new release of 300 pages of balance sheets reporting on the royal budget with shocking transparency, and an endless parade of scandals: a diamond necklace scandal and an adultery scandal and numerous scandals surrounding the king and his advisors and the high aristocrats and the Parlement of Paris.

What I enjoyed about this book is the way it lends insight about how the news was consumed in the eighteenth century in Paris. Some read the newspaper, but the press was censored. Some read illegal news broadsides imported or printed illegally; professional newsmongers (yes, that was a profession) spread word orally at physical news-sharing sites including cafes and under a particular chestnut tree; others paid a small coin to hear the song-parody-of-the-day from news singers. Many of Darnton's chapters include references to the lyrics people sang in the streets of Paris with satirical commentary on the latest news cycle.

I give this book three stars and not more because about half of the chapters in the first 200 pages or so were hard for me to follow, or didn't keep my interest. It seemed like I could easily skip them and move on to the next chapter without it hurting my reading experience. But then it became clear that a number of the characters from earlier episodes were becoming main characters, and I had missed their background earlier.

The book expects a good deal of background understanding. If you don't know the relationship between the monarchy and the Parlement of Paris coming in, you might be lost from the outset. And many terms are defined once and then never again. I would have benefitted from a glossary at the end of the book, because most of the sentences of the prose rely on understanding of French terminology.

The conclusion of the book ties together a narrative quality that is otherwise lacking in the rest of the text. I enjoyed the ending. Darnton highlights around ten meta-narratives that developed in the French public's consciousness in the previous four decades, all of which made revolution thinkable in 1789. He also notes that one precondition for the revolution was the concept of a news-following public altogether. The people of Paris had awareness of the news; they had a word for "the news," and for most people, news awareness and commentary had become a thing that occupied a sizeable share of their social bandwidth within their culture. This is worth noting.

But while I was reading most of the book, I wished that the chapters involved more analysis or interpretation on Darnton's part. Following the news cycles in chronological order with minimal commentary is a sort of hit-or-miss experience.

[Frumenty · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I've learned from reading this is that for 40 years the government of France was deadlocked. The treasury was nearly skint, nobody but those that controlled the government trusted the government, and parliaments refused to cooperate in implementing measures the government proposed to remedy this dire situation. Parliaments had good grounds to distrust les grands. Privilege was entrenched, 'ordained by God,' and those who benefited by it were, with notable exceptions (eg. Lafayette, Mirabeau), strident in defence of privilege. The burden of proposed remedies for the fiscal shortfall usually fell upon the poor and middle classes, but the King was under extreme pressure to force the matter to a resolution regardless of growing public revulsion against 'despotism.'
The focus of the book is upon the many ways in which news of public affairs was disseminated among the people of Paris. Much of it was ill-informed, or polemical, or libellous, or deliberately misleading. But much of it was also earnest, idealistic, thoughtful, and even visionary. It was frankly a hubbub of voices competing to be heard. Few wanted the overthrow of the monarchy, though the persons who embodied it were little respected, but no government minister (with the exception of Necker, in the public imagination the embodiment of openness and honesty) was exempt from popular derision. Certain accidental circumstances, like grain shortages and an extremely cold winter, exacerbated matters. People really had suffered too much, and many of the soldiers summoned to put down the disturbances just couldn't bring themselves to do it.
This is good history, and very approachable for the general reader. It covers 40 years of episodes - scandals, unrest, misfortune, and controversy. It must be admitted it's a bit of a litany of misery and bickering, but very helpful if you were wondering how la Révolution came about. Recommended.

[Mees · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een interessant, vlot geschreven boek! Darnton richt zich op Parijs als informatiegemeenschap, oftewel, hij is geïnteresseerd in het nieuws, nepnieuws, opinies, pamfletten, liederen en roddels die er de ronde doen. Dankzij de brede interesse van de Parijzenaren wordt er een grote diversiteit aan onderwerpen behandeld; van de eerste ballonvaarten tot aan invloedrijke kwakzalvers, en van de Amerikaanse Revolutie tot aan de buitenechtelijke affaires van de koning. Het voordeel hiervan is dat de diversiteit aan onderwerpen, behandeld in behapbare hoofdstukken, ervoor zorgt dat het boek nooit langdradig wordt. Het nadeel is dat niet elk onderwerp even interessant is. Roddels ontrent het Franse koningshuis van de 18e eeuw zijn weliswaar iets interessanter dan RTL Boulevard, maar niet veel.
Bovendien worstelt Darnton met zijn eigen ambitie. Zo wil hij laten zien wat de 'gewone' Parijzenaar dacht, maar wordt hij door zijn bronnen beperkt tot de gedachtes van een beperkt aantal Parijzenaars. Dit selecte groepje lijkt bovendien te bestaan uit het deel van de bevolking dat het relatief goed had, waardoor het gissen blijft hoe de onderlaag erin stond. Daarnaast komt Darntons plan om aan te tonen dat er in deze jaren onder de bevolking zoiets als een 'revolutionary temper' ontstaat niet helemaal uit de verf. Vaak komt hij aan het eind van het hoofdstuk aan met een niet heel overtuigend verband met revolutionaire gedachtes. Bovendien lijken de politieke ontwikkelingen voor het overgrote deel toch echt een elitekwestie te zijn geweest, iets wat zich tussen Versailles en het parlement afspeelt en waar de bevolking weinig mee te maken heeft.
Desalniettemin met veel plezier gelezen! Ik zou aanraden het hele boek te lezen, maar te beginnen bij de conclusie. Zo vallen je tijdens het lezen beter de dingen op die Darnton belangrijk vindt.

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The more I read about revolutions, especially the big ones, the more complicated they seem, Comparative studies such as by Hannah Arendt bring up similarities and differences by show incredible uniqueness - compare the US, French, and Russian Revolutions. The dynamics seem strongly governed by distinctive persons and key situations. At the same time, however, there is a remarkable continuity between the revolutionary moment and the history the led up to the revolutionary moment and breakthrough. I don’t see that the analysis will ever get fully nailed down, but it is always fascinating to read, especially the farther away one is from events.

Robert Barnton’s new book is a detailed look at the social and cultural dynamics in the forty-one years prior to 1789 that set the stage for the Revolution. A large number of fairly small events and activity patterns gelled around Paris in the years of Enlightenment leading up to 1789. This is a fun intellectual history not just of intellectuals but of popular consciousness that soon took over and ran past the intellectuals. There is a temptation to see all of this as an historical account that has no implications today. That would be a mistake, however. In a time of social media, fake news, and phony events, it has never been easier to mobilize mobs to almost whatever direction one wants. While the US does not have that tradition of street demonstrations that Paris has, it has enough to be concerned and involved. France seems to have nearly perpetual renewals of mass protest every few years.

This is a long read but well worth the effort.

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

--- "By studying Paris as an early information society, it is possible to construct a narrative of events as Parisians experienced them and to show how that experience, accumulated over four decades, came together in the formation of a revolutionary temper." (Darnton: 450)
--- "Beaumarchais had left on a secret mission to negotiate with Morande, the most notorious libeler in the colony of French expatriates in London, for the destruction of a scandalous biography of Mme du Barry, 'Mémoires secrets d'une femme publique'.' (Darnton: 164)
--- "She reportedly had François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis made foreign minister and arranged for the Prince de Soubise to command France's largest army during the Seven Years' War. After the humiliating defeat of Soubise at Rossbach, the dauphine reportedly told Mme de Pompadour that she should limit herself to appointing the farmers general of taxes rather than generals of the army." (Darnton: 117)
--- "Booksellers could not satisfy the demand and fell back on renting it out, by the day and sometimes by the hour: 12 sous for sixty minutes with one volume." (Darnton: 96)

This book tries to explain why a revolt happened in Paris in July 1789. The author moves away from the reasons most historians give and tries to put forward a new theory for it instead, one based more on the psychology of the human mind I think. The consequences of that revolt weren't that new to me and the book was too long and with too many details. But I liked the book as it helped me understand the 1789 Revolt in Paris more.

[C. Beaudoin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book came to my attention when I was listening to an interview with Margaret Atwood. She and her interviewer were talking about the current US political climate, and a comparison was made to the lead up to the French Revolution. Atwood suggested this was an excellent, and objective, overview of the cultural climate in France in the years leading up to the revolution. How lucky this author is to have such a distinguished writer on their side.

I thought the book was very, very good in terms of educating me about a time I know very little about. And the comparisons to the current day are uncanny. I seldom read books twice, but in this case, I will absolutely read it again. There was just too much information to absorb in just a single reading of the book.

I do want to give a heads up to those reading the audiobook. While the narrator is solid, he did not change the pitch of his voice all that often. Because the book is over 20 listening hours, it’s hard to stay engaged the entire time. Also, since I checked the audiobook out of my public library, I had 21 days to read it. Committed, I spent over an hour a day listening to the book. But if it was up to me, I’d cut an hour of content, just so listeners of the book aren’t as overwhelmed with its length as I was. Still, these issues are audio-production related, not an indictment of the quality of the writing.

[Caleb Ringger]

Darnton attempts to answer the question "how did the French Revolution happen?" by immersing the reader in the four decades of political turmoil, social and religious upheaval, societal scandal, and economic crisis that preceded the storming of the Bastille in July 1789. Rather than make an abstract argument, he lets the events speak for themselves, effectively asking the reader: "if you experienced all this, wouldn't you revolt, too?"

In doing so, he digs deep into the people, stories, and ideas that dominated Parisian society in their time but were quickly overshadowed by the cataclysm of 1789-1815. The salacious scandals and colorful characters of mid-18th-century Paris come to life in the pages of this book, helping the reader understand why the Revolution happened when and how it did.

Besides being hugely entertaining and easily readable, this book also provokes serious reflection on how, if, and when such a revolution could happen again. It's not hard to see some obvious parallels between 18th-century France and modern America--uncontrollable national debt, cavernous inequality, outrage-guzzling popular media, buffoonishly corrupt leaders, and declining international power. On the other hand, modern America has much less absolute poverty, naked despotism, class solidarity, and tolerance for violence, and much more basic freedom. I think we're still a few eggs short of an omelet, for better or worse.

Rating: A

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a magisterial history recounting the factors that led up the French Revolution. Darnton is in complete command of a wide variety of soci0-economic forces that are difficult to measure with precision but, in total, clearly ended the French monarchy. He writes in detail about the thinkers--Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot--who opened minds to the possibility of life beyond aristocratic domination...about the decadence and financial mismanagement of the French court that aroused general resentment...about the Church's stubborn refusal to pay its share of national expenses...about secular governmental administrators who threw back the curtains revealing huge national deficits...about the feckless military adventures of Louis XV and XVI...about the impact of the price of bread...and about the ways in which public discourse, fueled by hundreds of pamphlets, led the Third Estate (the people) to believe it had a foundational role in defining French policy. France was a nation in decline, a debtor, rotten with unjustifiable aristocratic privilege.

Darnton probably is the only historian of France who could have written this book. There is little editorializing here, just an exciting account of how the ancien regime fell lost legitimacy and fell apart.

[Marcus Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a impressively written and well-researched book. The author demonstrated clear mastery of the material he covered and embedded a wealth of primary sources in the text to draw out his narrative. Each chapter is informed by a particular event or succession of relate events, and are mostly based on the pamphlets, plays, reports, or other primary documents tied to that event. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and learned quite a bit about Paris and Parisians in the lead-up to the early days of the French Revolution.

I do wish the narrative continued further. The final chapters address the storming of the Bastille and it’s immediate aftermath aftermath; many successive events that occurred shortly after this are not addressed. I certainly understand the author’s decision not to continue his book past this point (it is a foundational event in the period); fingers crossed that he decides to continue his approach from this book in a sequel focused on the years 1789-1804. I would greatly enjoy continuing to learn from the writings of the French how they reacted to and informed the events of that crucial period.

[Mattschratz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has me in full Stefon Mode. This book has everything: a description of four or five incredibly complex scandals featuring deeply weird nobles. It has everyone in Paris being annoyed at Louis XV's girlfriends. It has a fascinating account of the way that things that actually mattered, like the cost of bread, were understood to relate to these absurd scandals. It was a ton of stuff about the Comte de Mirabeau (already goofy) and the Comte d'Artois (already supremely annoying). It has--weird category--one of the best conclusions to a history book I've ever read, which made a whole host of smart but non-forced analyses of what people could learn about this period with respect to their own, current lives. I am apologetic to all of the people I actually know for how much they will hear me talk about the Diamond Necklace Affair and the Jansenists versus the Jesuits, and Mesmer versus everyone. I have not even mentioned the hot air balloons: this book has a lot of stuff about hot air balloons, which was good, too.

[Brian Penoyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely wonderful close read of the “information network” of Paris in the forty years before the French Revolution, and how the events and discourse led to a mindset or “temper” where the revolution could happen. The detail brings to life a world before modern telecommunications with limited freedom of the press, but where spoken word, innuendo, literary circles, and subversive printing nonetheless kept one of Europe’s great cities informed (and sometimes misinformed), and involved in political and social justice events. Worth the length for the richness of detail in exploring both how the information network and system actually functioned, and for how it effected a change in the broad public mindset.

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. The years leading up to the French Revolution are thoroughly documented in existing works. The author of this took on the challenge of telling of these events through the perspective of ordinary Parisians. To what extent did the average person witness and understand what was going on around them during the 1780s? How did these events impact their daily lives? Overall a very informative social history. What also made this special is reading it while we were in Paris. As we navigated our way through the modern majestic city, i certainly felt connected with 18th century Parisians by walking some of the same bridges and streets.

[Andrew Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible insight into the daily life and mindset of Parisians during the heady days leading up to the French Revolution. You really feel as though you inhabit the streets, hear the topical songs and the shouts of the nouvellistes in the gardens of the city and read the illegal pamphlets and polemics of the day. Absolutely exceptional view of history from the angle of the contemporary news as experienced by the people.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is simply superb! A truly delightful history of how the years and events from 1748 to 1789 prepared the Parisians and other Frenchmen for the great work of casting aside the ancien regime, and especially the parts played by the mass media of the day, the huge number of pamphlets and news sheets known as nouvelles a la main which formed, Darnton contends, an "early information society" that shaped the collective consciousness of the nation. Highly recommended!

[Richard O'Hagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best book I have read on the events which led to the French Revolution in 1789. The longer time frame compared to most other works gives a broader perspective to the subject and each element is presented in a clear and readable way.

My one small gripe would be the author's habit of quoting from his original French sources but not always providing a translation, which is frustrating at times if, like me, your French is far from fluent.