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Spring 2024

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New in Seventeenth Century News
A Review of 1668: The Year of the Animal in France

In the latest issue of Seventeenth Century News, Denis Grélé discusses Peter Sahlins’s acclaimed book 1668: The Year of the Animal in France. Click here to learn more about the book. Click on the button to the left to read the full review. An excerpt appears below:

“Through the unusual lens of the history of animals and their representations from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, Peter Sahlins illustrates impeccably the conflicts and tensions that occurred between 1660 and 1670, going from the assertion and rejection of the Cartesian idea of animals as beast-machines to the classic quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, then to the relations between the subjects and their sovereign. … This book is addressed to all from the casual reader interested in Louis XIV and Versailles to historians, art historians, philosophers and literary critics. Sahlins is remarkably able to demonstrate an impressive knowledge of the time period without ever falling into pedantry or obscurity. The argument is fully documented and clearly presented. Even for the non-animal lover, one finds intense pleasure reading this important page of French history through the stories of animals.”