New session of the "Paris IAS Ideas" talk series, with the participation of Robert Darnton, Harvard University / Paris IAS Research Fellow".

The "Paris IAS Ideas" online talk series features short and stimulating presentations from fellows of the Paris Institute for Advanced Study, marking the beginning of 1-month writing residencies.

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Presentation

Prof. Darnton will reassess a debate about the ideological origins of the French Revolution.  Instead of deriving its principles directly from the Enlightenment, he has argued that radical Jacobinism owed a great deal to the violent pamphleteering and frustrated ambitions of hack writers who formed a literary underground in Paris during the pre-revolutionary period.  Having developed this interpretation fifty years ago, he will re-evaluate it and see how much of it holds up today.