The landmark history of France and French culture in the 18th century, a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730s held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some 20 times?

Why in the 18th century version of Little Red Riding Hood did the wolf eat the child at the end?

What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city?

These are some of the provocative questions the distinguished Harvard historian Robert Darnton answers in The Great Cat Massacre, a kaleidoscopic view of European culture during what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment". A classic of European history, it is an essential starting point for understanding Enlightenment France.