Book History: Enlightenment Europe's Literary Revolution

Robert Choate Darnton, born May 10, 1939, in New York City, has established himself as a preeminent cultural historian specializing in 18th-century France and the history of books. After graduating from Harvard University in 1960, he attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, earning his PhD in 1964. His distinguished career includes serving as a reporter for The New York Times, teaching at Princeton University as the Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History, and culminating as Harvard University's Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library (2007-2016). His major works include "The Business of Enlightenment," "The Literary Underground of the Old Regime," and "The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Prerevolutionary France," which earned him the National Book Critics Circle Award. Darnton's achievements have been recognized with numerous honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship (1982), election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1980), the Légion d'Honneur (1999), and the National Humanities Medal (2011). As a pioneer in book history and digital humanities, he co-founded the Digital Public Library of America and designed the Colonial North America digital archive, demonstrating his commitment to making knowledge accessible in both traditional and digital formats