Raymond Birn
Royal censorship of books in Enlightenment France
In 18th-century France century France, censorship was less the enemy than the ally of the Enlightenment. How did the apparatus of the monarchical state come to promote tolerance ? Bringing to life the figures of the royal censors - scholars, men of letters, ecclesiastics or clerks of the state -, analyzing their discourse and practices, recounting countless cases, from the most famous(the Encyclopédie, Helvétius, Rousseau) to the most obscure, Raymond Birn explains how they protected freedom of expression against the wrath of Parliament and the Church, and contributed to the emergence of a public space in France. Professor at the University of Eugene (Oregon, USA), Raymond Birn is one of France's leading historians of books and the eighteenth century. His books include : Crisis, Absolutism, Revolution : Europe and the World 1648-1789 and Forging Rousseau : Print, Commerce and Cultural Manipulation in the Late Enlightenment.
Birn R., La Censure royale des livres dans la france des lumières, preface by D. Roche, Paris, Odile Jacob, coll. " Travaux du Collège de France ", 2007, 192 p.
