A Deluge of Books

A Review of A Literary Tour De France: The World of Books on the Eve of the French Revolution

by Daniel Mallock (March 2018)

 

 

 

 

 

A Literary Tour De France: The World of Books on the Eve of the French Revolution
by Robert Darnton

358 pp., Oxford University Press, 2018, $34.95

 

 

 

he diffusion of revolutionary ideas into and across France prior to 1789 is a subject often discussed and studied but rarely has the matter of how and by whom the books themselves made their way into and throughout the country been covered. Robert Darnton’s fascinating “A Literary Tour de France” goes a long way to fill this hole in the historical literature of, well, historical literature.

 

It is certainly not a standard approach to begin reading a book at the end. This book is an exception. The motives and drivers of the author, an accomplished scholar and academic, are important to understanding and appreciating the sometimes overwhelming depth of details included in the book. In a sense, the author’s travels within and without the archives of Neuchâtel are as instructive to what is happening within the book as are the details so thoroughly documented. Only by reading the author’s acknowledgements that appear at the end of the book first, do the fine details and the many years spent in accumulating, understanding, translating, organizing and writing about them come into focus.

 

Loaded with extraordinary detail of books, book sellers and those with whom they worked, it is also much more for those who read between the lines. It is a window into the world of the historian, focusing sharply but through a one-way mirror so-to-speak on the lonely world of the historian as he wades through tens of thousands of pages of ledgers, dossiers, and correspondence. When the lights of the archives are switched off and the staff and researchers make their way home, a world of meaningful friendships, human kindness, beautiful scenery, small villages, alpine vistas, and superb wines and meals comes into view. All of this life of the historian outside the archives is described in the acknowledgements section at the end of the book which in itself could be the foundation of a follow up book.
 

Some readers may find the depth of detail more a distraction than added color. In fact, there is so much detail that “A Literary Tour de France” skirts dangerously close to micro-history. When comprehensiveness and thoroughness are essential parts of the author’s mission an over-abundance of information can become a troubling issue. This book is not an introductory approach but a thorough study backed up with even further data available on a website as a kind of research companion. For readers whose interest is books, book sellers, the trade in books, and how a Swiss firm skirted pre-revolutionary French bans and inspectors to get their wares into the French market Darnton’s book will be seen as an important resource and a pleasure to read.
 

 

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Daniel Mallock is a historian of the Founding generation and of the Civil War and is the author of Agony and Eloquence: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and a World of Revolution. He is a Contributing Editor at New English Review.
 

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