Kiss of Lamourette

At home in the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries, Robert Darnton is a shrewd and entertaining guide to the shifting borderlands of history and culture. These wide-ranging essays appear under various headings: “Current Events” —this section includes the wonderful story of the moment in 1792 when all the delegates in the French Legislative Assembly kissed each other; “Media,” on television, pounding a newspaper beat, and tips to academics on how to get a book published; “The Printed Word,” with an essay on the history of books; “The Lay of the Land,” on aspects of intellectual history; and “Good Neighbors,” on the relation of history to literature anthropology, and the sociology of knowledge.