The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History

The landmark history of France and French culture in the eighteenth century, a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

“Robert Darnton has the inquisitiveness of an investigative reporter, the thoroughness of a rigorous scholar, and the sensitivity of a novelist.” —New Republic

When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730s held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with ...