American historian Robert Darnton works in line with historical anthropology - representatives of this direction are characterized by focusing on specific people or small human communities, on the symbolism of everyday life, and the search for indirect evidence about the events described. Whatever specific event of the 18th century he examines, be it the extermination of cats by Parisian printers or the collection of materials on writers by a police inspector, Darnton reveals its background and introduces readers not only to everyday details, but also to the psychology of his heroes. CONTENTS: Acknowledgments 5 Introduction 61 . Peasants tell tales: The hidden meaning of "Tales of Mother Goose" 132. Workers riot: Cat massacre on the rue Saint-Sevrain 913. The bourgeois brings order to the world around him: The city as a text 1264. A police inspector sorts out his files: Anatomy of a literary republic 1735. Philosophers pruning the tree of knowledge: The Epistemological Strategy of the Encyclopedia 2346. Rousseau's Readers Respond: The Creation of Romantic Sensibility 250Conclusion 300Notes 308History, Anthropology, and Journalism. Interview with Robert Darnton 340Index 366