Robert Darnton
Encyclopedia
Robert Darnton is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 cultural historian, recognized as a leading expert on 18th-century France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

Life

He graduated from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1960, attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...

, and earned a Ph.D. (D. Phil.) in history from Oxford in 1964, where he studied with Richard Cobb
Richard Cobb
Richard Charles Cobb was a British historian. He became Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, after an initially unconventional academic career in which he spent a dozen years working as an independent scholar in French archives. His work was recognised in France by the award of...

, among others. He worked as reporter at The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

from 1964 to 1965. Joining the Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 faculty in 1968, he was appointed Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982. He served as President of the American Historical Association
American Historical Association
The American Historical Association is the oldest and largest society of historians and professors of history in the United States. Founded in 1884, the association promotes historical studies, the teaching of history, and the preservation of and access to historical materials...

 in 1999.

On July 1, 2007, he transferred to emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...

 status at Princeton, and was appointed Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and director of the Harvard University Library
Harvard University Library
The Harvard University Library system comprises about 90 libraries, with more than 16 million volumes. It is the oldest library system in the United States, the largest academic and the largest private library system in the world...

, succeeding Sidney Verba
Sidney Verba
Sidney Verba is an American political scientist, librarian and library administrator. His academic interests are mainly American and comparative politics. He was the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard University. He also served Harvard as the director of the Harvard University...

.

In 1983 he delivered the Huizinga Lecture
Huizinga Lecture
The Huizinga Lecture is a prestigious annual lecture in the Netherlands about a subject in the domains of cultural history or philosophy. The lecture is in honour of Johan Huizinga, a distinguished Dutch historian who worked in the first half of the 20th century...

 in Leiden, the Netherlands, under the title The Meaning of Mother Goose.

Darnton is a pioneer in the field of the history of the book
History of the book
The history of books follows a suite of technological innovations for books. These improved the quality of text conservation, the access to information, portability, and the cost of production...

. He currently is writing about electronic publishing
Electronic publishing
Electronic publishing or ePublishing includes the digital publication of e-books and electronic articles, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. Electronic publishing has become common in scientific publishing where it has been argued that peer-reviewed scientific journals are in...

. He is founder of the Gutenberg-e program, sponsored by Mellon Foundation.

Darnton is a trustee of the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...


Awards and honors

One of his books, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), won the National Book Critics Circle Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....

 for criticism in 1995.

In 1999 he was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...

, an award given by the French government, in recognition of his work. In 2004 he was awarded the Gutenberg prize by the International Gutenberg Society.

In 2005 he received an award for distinguished achievement from the American Printing History Association.

Family

His brother is the retired New York Times editor and author John Darnton
John Darnton
John Darnton is an American journalist and author.-At The New York Times:After attending the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Darnton joined The New York Times as a copyboy in 1966...

, and his father was the war correspondent Byron Darnton
Byron Darnton
Byron Darnton was an American reporter and war correspondent for the New York Times in the Pacific theater during World War II....

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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