''The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History'' is an influential collection of essays on the

cultural history Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing t ...

of early modern France by the American historian

Robert Darnton Robert Choate Darnton (born May 10, 1939) is an American cultural historian and academic librarian who specializes in 18th-century France. He was director of the Harvard University Library from 2007 to 2016. Life Darnton was born in New Yor ...

, first published in 1984. The book's title is derived from its most famous chapter which describes and interprets an unusual source detailing the "massacre" of

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

s by

apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

printers living and working on Rue Saint-Séverin in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

during the late 1730s. Other chapters look at

fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cult ...

s, the writing of the ''

Encyclopédie ''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' (English: ''Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts''), better known as ''Encyclopédie'', was a general encyclopedia publis ...

'' and other aspects of French early modern history.

Methodology

Darnton, influenced by

Clifford Geertz Clifford James Geertz (; August 23, 1926 – October 30, 2006) was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decade ...

who was a colleague of Darnton's and had pioneered the approach of " thick description" in

cultural anthropology Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portma ...

, 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. ''The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History'', the book containing this account, has become one of Darnton's most popular writings; it has been published in eighteen languages. Darnton describes how, as the apprentices suffered grueling working conditions, they came to resent the privileges which their masters gave to their

s, and devised a plan to deal with the pompous pets by slaughtering them with the intention of discomforting their masters. Darnton interprets this as an early form of workers' protest. (As may the wife in the story, who says she believes that "they were threatened by a more serious kind of insubordination" beyond the simple stoppage of work.) The cats were a favourite of the printer's wife and were fed much better than the apprentices, who were in turn served "catfood" (rotting meat scraps). Aside from this, they were mistreated, beaten and exposed to cold and horrible weather. One of the apprentices imitated a cat by screaming like one for several nights, making the printer and his wife despair. Finally, the printer ordered the cats rounded up and dispatched. The apprentices did this, rounded up all the cats they could find, beat them half to death and held a 'trial'. They found the cats guilty of witchcraft and sentenced them to death by hanging. Darnton concluded: Darnton's approach to the historical texts he uses, both in the Cat Massacre chapter and others in the volume, has been criticised since shortly after the work's appearance for its simplistic assumptions. An early exchange between Darnton and French cultural historian Roger Chartier was subjected to a scathing analysis by Dominic LaCapra of the 'Great Symbol Massacre' involved. Harold Mah in 1991 focused directly on Darnton's account of the 'Massacre', arguing ultimately that the author had 'suppressed' the actual nature of the source in pursuit of an engaging interpretation.Harold Mah, “Suppressing the Text:The Metaphysics of Ethnographic History in Darnton's Great Cat Massacre," History Workshop 31 (spring 1991), 1–20

References

External links

The Great Cat Massacre
at ''

History Today ''History Today'' is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it presents serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible. The magazine covers all periods and geographical regions and pub ...

''
Text
at

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Cat Massacre, The History books about France American history books 1984 non-fiction books Anthropology books Cats in popular culture Cats in literature Animal cruelty incidents Basic Books books

Methodology

See also

References

Further reading

External links