"This captivating history of the decades leading up to the French Revolution offers a populist account of a fervent political moment. Darntonimmerse[ s] readers in what agitated Parisians read, wore, ate and sang on the way to toppling the monarchy of Louis XVI." -- New York Times Book Review "What did Parisians think and gossip, sing and obsess about over the decades before the storming of the Bastille? In The Revolutionary Temper, Robert Darnton paints a sumptuous mural of the eighteenth-century mind. With the Encyclopédie, with manned balloons in the air, reason seemed on a roll. With posters, pamphlets, and public readings, the written word appeared supreme. A few vicious libels, some stock market manipulation, a lurid adultery trial, one notorious diamond necklace, any number of court intrigues, skyrocketing bread prices, and plunging temperatures combined, among other elements, to shake a nation to its core. A rich, beautifully crafted book that plants the reader in a Paris that feels at all times electric." -- Stacy Schiff, author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams "Standing at the summit of Robert Darntons towering intellectual career, The Revolutionary Temper plunges the reader into the coffee shops, workrooms, and alleys of pre-revolutionary Paris. Following the traces of songs and rumors, insults and discontent, Darnton allows us to eavesdrop, almost miraculously, on whispers nearly two and a half centuries old. Here is the hive mind of ordinary people in extraordinary times, as they shake loose the thought and feeling of ages past, and decideslowly, and then all at onceto begin the world anew." -- Jane Kamensky, author of A Revolution in Color "A page-turner on the 40 years before the fall of the Bastille." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Darntons panoramic vision is rendered in lucid and vigorous prose, with a consistent focus on the day-to-day communications and emotions of regular people. Its an enthralling exploration of the psychology of political change." -- Publishers Weekly
