History of Silence

Alain Corbin is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Paris I, Sorbonne.

"Alain Corbin is one of the most imaginative historians writing anywhere. His series of brilliant studies of the senses includes his “auditory landscape” of the nineteenth century. Here, the search for silence, its sounds and meanings. This is a gem, beautiful and thought-provoking."John Merriman, Charles Seymour Professor of History, Yale University"Alain Corbin is renowned for pushing historical writing into new areas. In A History of Silence he goes further still: not only into the history of an elusive and many-sided concept, but into its philosophy, theology and literature too."Robert Tombs, University of Cambridge"The book brims with ideas: on painting as “silent speech”; writing as the interruption of silence; the cruel silence of God; and the gravid silence of forests, dead-calm seas and snowfall."Times Higher Education"Terrific. ... a mischievous historian of the senses, Alain Corbin dares to devote these eloquent pages to silence, a subject hitherto neglected by his colleagues. Far more than the 'mere absence of noise,' his book makes us feel the thousand and one precious qualities of silence that have enchanted writers and poets over the centuries."Le Point"Owing a clear debt to the Annales school of French historiography, with its focus on the byways of social life, Corbin’s writings have been especially inspired by practitioners of l’histoire des mentalités. He has been described as a master, in particular, of l’histoire du sensible — the history, we might say, of the senses and sensibility. […]Silence can now be added to the list of histories he has tackled.”David E. Cooper in Los Angeles Review of Books  "A History of Silence is definitely beguiling, like an oasis of tranquility amid the maelstrom." The Independent"A quietly learned book for our loudly cacophonous age."Michael Dirda in The Washington Post

• AcknowledgementsPreludeChapter 1. Silence and the intimacy of placesChapter 2. The silences of natureChapter 3. The search for silenceChapter 4. The educations and disciplines of silenceChapter 5. Interlude: Joseph and Nazareth, or absolute silenceChapter 6. The speech of silenceChapter 7. The tactics of silenceChapter 8. From the silences of love to the silence of hateChapter 9. Postlude: The tragedy of silenceNotes