Robert Darnton

Robert Darnton (born May 10, 1939) is an American cultural historian, recognized as a leading expert on eighteenth-century France.

Life

He graduated from Harvard University in 1960, attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship, and earned a Ph.D. (D. Phil.) in history from Oxford in 1964, where he studied with Richard Cobb, among others. He worked as reporter at "The New York Times" from 1964 to 1965. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982, and was President of the American Historical Association in 1999.

He joined the Princeton University faculty in 1968, and was Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History. On July 1, 2007, he transferred to emeritus status at Princeton, and was appointed Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and director of the Harvard University Library, [ [http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6446458.html Princeton's Robert Darnton To Succeed Verba as Harvard Library Director - 5/25/2007 - Library Journal ] ]

Darnton is a pioneer in the field of the history of the book. He currently is writing about electronic publishing. He is founder of the [http://www.historians.org/prizes/gutenberg/index.cfm Gutenberg-e program] , sponsored by Mellon Foundation.

Awards and honors

One of his books, "The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France" (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 1995.

In 1999 he was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur, an award given by the French government, in recognition of his work. In 2004 he was awarded the Gutenberg prize by the International Gutenberg Society.

In 2005 he received an award for distinguished achievement from the American Printing History Association. [ [http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S11/22/88A68/?section=featured Books reveal volumes about times past] , Jennifer Greenstein Altmann, Princeton Weekly Bulletin, 28 March 2005.] He was President of the American Historical Association from 1997-1998.

Family

His brother is the retired "New York Times" editor and author John Darnton, and his father was the war correspondent Byron Darnton.

References

Works

*"Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France" (1968), Harvard University Press
*"The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, 1775-1800" (1979), Harvard University Press
*"The Literary Underground of the Old Regime" (1982), Harvard University Press
*"The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History" (1984)
*"Revolution in Print: the Press in France 1775-1800" (1989) edited with Daniel Roche
*"The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History" (1989)
*"Edition et sédition. L'univers de la littérature clandestine au XVIIIe siècle" (1991)
*"Berlin Journal, 1989-1990" (1991)
*"Gens de lettres, gens du livre" (1992)
*"The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Prerevolutionary France" (1995)
*"The Corpus of Clandestine Literature in France, 1769-1789" (1995)
*"George Washington's False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century" (June 2004

ee also

*History of the book

External links

* [http://www.historians.org/prizes/gutenberg/rdarnton2.cfm Darnton on the Gutenberg-e Program]
* [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21514 Darnton on libraries "in the new age"]
* [http://www.nybooks.com/authors/32 Darnton archive] from "The New York Review of Books"