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

First vintage books paperback edition 1985- covers shiny clean however the edges of the pages do have some tanning- spine is tight -interior unmarked- cover art" the first stage of cruelty"- William Hogarth courtesy trustees London British Museum- cover design by Keith Sheridan Associates Inc. When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730's 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 laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some twenty times? Why in the 18th century version of "Little Red Riding Hood" did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? These are some of the provocative questions Robert Darnton attempts to answer in this dazzling series of essays that probe the ways of thought in what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment."-- . -- The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History Social history- Author Robert Darnton- Edition revised- -Vintage Books, 1985 ISBN 0394729277, 9780394729275 -298 pages Subjects History ' Modern ' 17th Century - Ruth Reaser..LAXVespa Los Angeles /Culver City