Robert darnton the great cat massacre analysis
Summary of the great cat massacre...
Robert darnton the great cat massacre analysis
The Great Cat Massacre
Book by Robert Darnton
The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History is an influential collection of essays on the cultural history of early modern France by the American historian Robert Darnton, first published in The book's title is derived from its most famous chapter which describes and interprets an unusual source detailing the "massacre" of cats by apprenticeprinters living and working on Rue Saint-Séverin in Paris during the late s.
Other chapters look at fairy tales, the writing of the Encyclopédie and other aspects of French early modern history.
Methodology
Darnton, influenced by Clifford Geertz who was a colleague of Darnton's and had pioneered the approach of "thick description" in cultural anthropology, aimed to gain greater insight into the period and social groups involved by studying what he perceived to be something which appeared alien to the late modern mind&#;– the fact that killing cats might be funny