Volume 39, Number 17 · October 22, 1992
Reading a Riot
By Robert Darnton
The Vanishing Children of Paris: Rumor and Politics before the French Revolution
by Arlette Farge, by Jacques Revel, translated by Claudia Miéville
Harvard University Press, 146 pp., $19.95
Now, months after the Los Angeles riots, a question drifts unanswered. It is not the familiar query—What caused the explosion?—but something more elusive: What did it mean? Commentary came almost as quickly as coverage on television, but it dwelled on the social and economic conditions of South Central Los Angeles and the anarchy in the streets, leaving other questions hanging: Could the riots be understood as something more than mindless violence? Were they saying something? Could they be read?
Review, 3375 words
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