The Devil in the Holy Water, or the Art of Slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon

by Robert Darnton

Book Overview

Slander has always been a nasty business, Robert Darnton notes, but that is no reason to consider it a topic unworthy of inquiry. By destroying reputations, it has often helped to delegitimize regimes and bring down governments. Nowhere has this been more the case than in eighteenth-century France, when a ragtag group of literary libelers flooded the market with works that purported to expose the wicked behavior of the great. Salacious or seditious,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812221710
• ISBN13: 9780812221718
• Release Date: August 2011
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Length: 552 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.1" x 9.2"