Darnton carefully explores the trade in forbidden books in seventeenth and eighteenth century France and the potential impact of that trade on popular consciousness and the ever-changing way in which the French Monarchy was perceived from the reign of Louis XIV until the Revolution. Darnton elucidates the mechanics of the book trade of the time, how it worked to disseminate forbidden literature, and which forbidden books attained “best seller” status. Darnton also elaborates on the various categories of forbidden literature, including the works of philosophical pornography, utopian fantasy and political slander which fed the public’s desire for transgressive works and, ultimately, undermined the foundations of monarchical legitimacy. Finally, in painting this brilliant history of the forbidden book in pre-Revolutionary France, Darnton carefully and persuasively outlines the details of the vast communcations network which existed in French society in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, a network which ran from Court to café to popular pamphlet to book and back, each element operating in a way which served to reinforce popular (and usually unfavorable) notions of the Court and Church and create a fertile breeding ground for social unrest.