The Writing Public: Participatory Knowledge Production in Enlightenment and Revolutionary France

by Elizabeth Andrews Bond

Overview

Inspired by the reading and writing habits of citizens leading up to the French Revolution, The Writing Public is a compelling addition to the long-running debate about the link between the Enlightenment and the political struggle that followed. Elizabeth Andrews Bond scoured France's local newspapers spanning the two decades prior to the Revolution as well as its first three years, shining a light on the letters to the editor. A form of early social media, these letters constituted a lively and ongoing conversation among readers.

Bond takes us beyond the glamorous salons of the intelligentsia into the everyday worlds of the craftsmen, clergy, farmers, and women who composed these letters. As a result, we get a fascinating glimpse into who participated in public discourse, what they most wanted to discuss, and how they shaped a climate of opinion.

The Writing Public offers a novel examination of how French citizens used the information press to form norms of civic discourse and shape the experience of revolution. The result is a nuanced analysis of knowledge production during the Enlightenment.

Thanks to generous funding from The Ohio State University Libraries and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access (OA) volumes, available on the Cornell University Press website and other Open Access repositories.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501753572
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	03/15/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	231,029
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Elizabeth Andrews Bond is Assistant Professor of History at Ohio State University.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Production and Distribution of the Information Press
2. The Writers, Self-Presentation, and Subjectivity
3. Reading Together, Book References, and Interacting with Print
4. Popular Science and Public Participation
5. Agricultural Reform and Local Innovation
6. Bienfaisance, Fellow Feeling, and the Public Good
7. Communicating the Revolution
Conclusion

What People are Saying About This

Suzanne Desan

By uncovering and investigating some 7,000 letters to the editor in provincial newspapers, The Writing Public paints a stunning portrait of the Enlightenment as a lively dialogue among diverse participants. An impressive and original contribution.

David Garrioch

The Writing Public skillfully illuminates a question that many historians have tried to answer: what were people reading on the eve of the French Revolution, and how did their reading affect their world view?

Editorial Reviews

[The Writing Public] is a compelling addition to the long-running debate about the link between the Enlightenment and the political struggle that followed.

New Books Network

When one thinks of the Enlightenment, the great philosophes and their writings probably spring to mind, but in this well-researched, well-written study of the popular press, Bond (Ohio State Univ.) explores the previously overlooked contributions of ordinary letters to the editors of the affiches, local newspapers that specialized in announcements and advertisements, in helping to spread the ideas of the philosophes and to generate an additional body of knowledge for the Enlightenment. Summing Up: ** Recommended. All levels.

CHOICE

It condenses an immense amount of research, with figures to explain network analysis, the sourcing of news, and the letters' contents and their authors' signatures.The richness of Bond's study stems from the plethora of voices that her analysis includes. Bond's monograph is a serious contribution to multiple fields in the study of eighteenth-century France.

French Studies: A Quarterly Review

This book is a very well-crafted specialist work. While this degree of specialization may inhibit the book's appeal to a general, educated audience, the work more than compensates for this by its absolutely essential value for any Enlightenment-focused scholar or graduate student with an interest in the print trade, or in the public sphere and social discourse of the period. For these latter readers, this book should not be overlooked.

The French Review

The chosen perspective, the investigation of the special section of letters to the editor in the Affiches, is original, having been rarely touched on and masterfully building on previously published research. The book is a great new contribution to the history of the French press, covering new approaches from the histories of science and agriculture.

American Historical Review

Bond writes very well[.] The Writing Public should be read by anyone interested in the intellectual origins of the French Revolution. The Writing Public is a model monograph, and the best guide to understanding mainstream French thinking on the eve of the Revolution.

Journal of Modern History

Bond writes very well [.]The Writing Public should be read by anyone interested in the intellectual origins of the French Revolution.The Writing Public is a model monograph, and the best guide to understanding mainstream French thinking on the eve of the Revolution.

-- "Journal of Modern History"

[The Writing Public] is a compelling addition to the long-running debate about the link between the Enlightenment and the political struggle that followed.

-- "New Books Network"

From the Publisher