The Analysis Of Robert Darnton’s New Cultural History Research

Since the 70’s and the 80’s of the last century, New Cultural History began to develop. Many scholars responded positively to the New Cultural History, because it was reactionary to the traditional historiography especially the "new history". Robert Darnton, an American cultural historian, through studying the materials of Neuchatel printing company, showed the world the French society of the old regime which was different from the past perception. Current scholars are more focus on the Darnton’s writings or on the one aspect of his new culture history research, and lack of the comprehensive systematic exposition of his research. This article is based on academic research, through analyzing Darnton’s writings and relevant historical theory, to analyze Darnton’s new culture history research and form a holistic grasp of his history research.Firstly, this paper analyzes Darnton’s personal experience as well as the influence of historiography thoughts by the late 20th century. The experience of reporter made Damton form an academically rigorous style of news writing, and gradually formed his own unique style of research. In the late 20th century, the "new history" and Marxist historiography changes as well as postmodernism develops quickly, these historiography thoughts provide a theoretical source for Darnton’s research. Secondly, we analyze Darnton’s new culture history research from the perspective of the "social history of ideas" and "history of books". We also study his research of anthropology and micro-history method in order to have a whole comprehension about Darnton’s research. Finally, we would make an evaluation of Damton’s historical research. During the research, Darnton always used the new evidence and took a narrative writing style. He also actively learned new theory and other disciplines so as to combine them with historical research. Darnton’s historical research not only promotes the development of new cultural history, also has a positive role model for interdisciplinary study of historiography. We can learn a lot from his research.Although Darnton’s history research has made remarkable achievements, and are gained greatly appreciation, there are still some scholars had questioned on it. They thought the materials Darnton’s history research used did not be a universal, so it can only be used as a case study. Some people even had doubts the authenticity of these materials. In addition, some scholars pointed out the shortcomings of his research methods, so they advocated that Darnton should explore a deeper level about the study of history, such as exploring the relationship between reader and text and so on. All in all, we should view dialectically of Darnton’s history research, not only concern his historiography contributions, but also cannot be ignored the deficiencies.