Explains the role of printing in the French Revolution and the establishment of the revolutionary government. It provides a striking way of understanding why the Revolution was revolutionary, how it turned the shaky world of monarchical France upside down. The book's editors, Robert Darnton and Daniel Roche, professors of European history at, respectively, Princeton University and the University of Paris, have leaped beyond the standard historical narratives to reveal with refreshing concreteness and telling illustrations how things really changed, and changed forever.