Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Revised)

Title: Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Revised)
Author: Robert Darnton
ISBN: 0674569512
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 1986
Binding: Paperback
Language: English
Edition: Revised ed.
Number of Pages: 232
Section: Psychology | Hypnotism
Publisher Description:

"[An] excellent and exemplary study in the history of ideas...Provides a commendable model for those interested in the way 'true' and 'false' ideas interact and broadly influence behavior." --Science

Early in 1788, Franz Anton Mesmer, a Viennese physician, arrived in Paris and began to promulgate a somewhat exotic theory of healing that almost immediately seized the imagination of the general populace. Robert Darnton, in his lively study of mesmerism and its relation to eighteenth-century radical political thought and popular scientific notions, provides a useful contribution to the study of popular culture and the manner in which ideas are diffused down through various social levels.