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{{short description|American historian}}{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2018}}

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| birth_place = New York City, US| death_date = | death_place = | occupation = Historian, librarian| nationality = | ethnicity = | citizenship = | education = Philips AcademyHarvard University|University of Oxford}}| period = | genre = | subject = Cultural history, 18th-century France, history of the book| movement = | notableworks = The Great Cat Massacre| family = | spouse = Susan Darnton| partner = | children = Byron Darnton (father)Eleanor Choate Darnton (mother)>John Darnton (brother)}}| influences = | influenced = | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = robertdarnton.org}}| portaldisp = }}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 York City. He graduated from Phillips Academy in 1957 and Harvard University in 1960, attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship, and earned a PhD (DPhil) in history from Oxford in 1964, where he studied with Richard Cobb, among others. The title of his thesis was Trends in radical propaganda on the eve of the French Revolution (1782–1788). He worked as reporter at The New York Times from 1964 to 1965. He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows from 1965 to 1968. Joining the Princeton University faculty in 1968, he was appointed Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982. He was president of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies from 1987 to 1991, where he founded the East-West Seminar, now continued as the International Seminar for Early Career Scholars.WEB, Past ISECS Congresses and Presidents - ISECS - International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies - UQTR,oraprdnt.uqtr.uquebec.ca/pls/public/gscw031?owa_no_site=304&owa_no_fiche=525, 2022-12-21, oraprdnt.uqtr.uquebec.ca, WEB, ISECS International Seminars for early career scholars,www.bsecs.org.uk/news-and-events/isecs-international-seminars-for-early-career-scholars/, 2022-12-21, BSECS, en-GB, He served as president of the American Historical Association in 1999, where he founded the Gutenberg-e Program, sponsored by Mellon Foundation.WEB, Robert Darnton,alumni.harvard.edu/travel/leaders/robert-darnton, 2022-12-21, Harvard Alumni, en, WEB,www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/rdarnton.htm, AHA Presidential Addresses: Robert Darnton, 1999, Robert Darnton, Liz Townsend, Robert Townsend, 2000, American Historical Association, August 3, 2011, Darnton was a trustee of the Oxford University Press from 1994 to 2007. He is a trustee of the New York Public Library, where he designed and helped launch the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.Taylor, Kate. “Amherst President is Expected to Be Named Chief of the New York Public Library,” New York Times. October 6, 2010. On July 1, 2007, he transferred to emeritus status at Princeton, and was appointed Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and director of the Harvard University Library, succeeding Sidney Verba.WEB, Albanese, Andrew, May 25, 2007, Princeton’s Robert Darnton To Succeed Verba as Harvard Library Director,www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6446458.html, dead,www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6446458.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20070930185317www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6446458.html,">web.archive.org/web/20070930185317www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6446458.html, September 30, 2007, Library Journal, As University Librarian, he co-founded the Digital Public Library of AmericaWEB, Launch of the Digital Public Library of America,harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2013/04/launch-of-the-digital-public-library-of-america.html, 2022-12-21, Harvard University Press Blog, and he designed the digital archive Colonial North America: Worlds of Change. In January 2016, Ann Blair succeeded him as the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor.WEB, November 23, 2015, Ann Blair named University Professor,news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/11/ann-blair-named-university-professor/, March 15, 2019, Harvard Gazette, Darnton is a pioneer in the field of the history of the book, and has written about electronic publishing.

Awards and honors

His first major prize was the Leo Gershoy Award for The Business of Enlightenment in 1979. He was later elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1980 and the American Philosophical Society in 1989.WEB, Robert Choate Darnton,www.amacad.org/person/robert-choate-darnton, 2022-04-19, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, en, WEB, APS Member History,search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Robert+Darnton&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced, 2022-04-19, search.amphilsoc.org, He has also received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism for The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996).In 1996-1997 he held the Lyell Readership in Bibliography.In 1999, he was named a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, an award given by the French government, in recognition of his work. In 2004 he was awarded the Gutenberg Prize of the International Gutenberg Society and the City of Mainz by the {{illm|Gutenberg-Gesellschaft|de|lt=International Gutenberg Society}}.In 2005, he received an award for distinguished achievement from the American Printing History Association.Books reveal volumes about times past, Jennifer Greenstein Altmann, Princeton Weekly Bulletin, March 28, 2005.File:02 darnton tuzzi.JPG|thumb|Prof. Darnton with prof. Hans Tuzzi at Festivaletteratura of MantuaMantuaOn February 13, 2012, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal 2011 by President Barack Obama, for his determination to make knowledge accessible to everyone.In 2013, he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca lifetime achievement award by the Institut de France.WEB,lib.harvard.edu/robert-darnton-awarded-prix-mondial-cino-del-duca, Robert Darnton Awarded Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca, 2013, Lib.harvard.edu, Harvard University Library, July 23, 2013,

Family

His brother is the retired New York Times editor and author John Darnton, and his father was the war correspondent Byron Darnton.

Works

{{external media| float = right| video1 = George Washington’s False Teeth, August 31, 20031, C-SPAN| video2 = Presentation by Darnton on The Case for Books, February 3, 2010, C-SPAN}}

• BOOK, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France, 1995, 1968, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 978-0-674-56950-8, registration,archive.org/details/mesmerismendofen0000darn,
• BOOK, The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, 1775–1800, 1987, 1979, Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA, 978-0-674-08786-6,
• BOOK, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime, 1982, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 978-0-674-53656-2,archive.org/details/literaryundergro00darn,
• BOOK, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, 1984, Basic Books, New York, 978-0-465-02700-2, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History,
• Coauthored with Daniel Roche: BOOK, Revolution in Print: the Press in France 1775–1800, 1989, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 978-0-520-06430-0,
• BOOK, The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History, 1990, W. W. Norton, New York, NY, 978-0-393-02753-2,archive.org/details/kissoflamourette00darn,
• BOOK, Edition et sédition. L’univers de la littérature clandestine au XVIIIe siècle, fr, 1991, Gallimard, Paris, 978-2-07-072212-9,
• BOOK, Berlin Journal, 1989–1990, 1993, 1991, W. W. Norton, New York, NY, 978-0-393-31018-4,archive.org/details/berlinjournal19800darn_0,
• BOOK, Gens de lettres, gens du livre, fr, 1992, O. Jacob, Paris, 978-2-7381-0162-4,
• BOOK, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, 1996, Norton, New York, 978-0-393-31442-7,
• BOOK, The Corpus of Clandestine Literature in France, 1769–1789, 1995, W. W. Norton, New York, NY, 978-0-393-03745-6,
• BOOK, George Washington’s False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century, 2003, W. W. Norton, New York, NY, 978-0-393-05760-7,archive.org/details/georgewashingto000darn,
• BOOK, The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future,archive.org/details/caseforbookspastp00darn, registration, 2009, NY Public Affairs, New York, 978-1-58648-826-0,
• BOOK, The Devil in the Holy Water, or the Art of Slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon, 2009, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 978-0-8122-4183-9,
• BOOK, Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris, 2010, Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA, 978-0-674-05715-9,
• BOOK, Censors at Work: How States Shaped Literature, 2014, W. W. Norton, New York, NY, 978-0-393-24229-4, registration,archive.org/details/censorsatworkhow0000darn,
• BOOK,global.oup.com/academic/product/a-literary-tour-de-france-9780195144512?cc=au&lang=en&, A Literary Tour de France: The World of Books on the Eve of the French Revolution, Oxford University Press, 2018, 978-0-19-514451-2, (author website)
• BOOK, Pirating and Publishing: The Book Trade in the Age of Enlightenment, Oxford University Press, 2021, 978-0-19-514452-9,
• BOOK, The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748-1789, W. W. Norton, 2023, 978-1-32-403558-9,

See also

• History of the book

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

{{commons}}

• Author website
• Darnton on the Gutenberg-e Program
• Articles by Robert Darnton from The New York Review of Books
• Robert Darnton, An Early Information Society: News and the Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris, AHA Presidential Address Retrieved April 19, 2010
• {{C-SPAN|58923}}
  • www.booknotes.org/Watch/177962-1/Robert+Darnton.aspx" title="web.archive.org/web/20160703093350www.booknotes.org/Watch/177962-1/Robert+Darnton.aspx">Interview with Darnton on George Washington’s False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century, Booknotes, August 31, 2003.

{{American Historical Association presidents|state=uncollapsed}}{{Authority control}}