Volume 33, Number 15 · October 9, 1986
Pop Foucaultism
By Robert Darnton
Damning the Innocent: A History of the Persecution of the Impotent in Pre-Revolutionary France
by Pierre Darmon, translated by Paul Keegan
Viking, 234 pp., $18.95
History has taken an odd turn in the last few years. The professionals cleared it of kings and queens so that they could study the play of structures and conjunctures. But the most recent run of publications suggests a new range of subjects, one stranger that the other. We have had books on the lesbian nun, the anorexic saint, the wild boy, and the pregnant man. We have had dog saints and cat massacres. We possess a whole library of works on madmen, criminals, witches, and beggars. Why this penchant for the offbeat and the marginal?[1]
Review, 2353 words
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