The Invention of Celebrity

Reviews / Votes

"Lilti's achievement is highly impressive. He provides a new perspective on the transformations of Western culture in the age of revolutions, and on the genesis of modern notions of selfhood and personal authenticity. And he reminds us that even as we laugh at contemporary celebrity culture, we need to take it seriously, and not merely as an excrescence or a pathology, but as a constituent element of political and cultural modernity." David A. Bell, Princeton University "With The Invention of Celebrity, Antoine Lilti has established himself as one of the most significant and talented historians of eighteenth-century France...It is an imaginative study, at once audacious and theoretically grounded, that establishes celebrity as an object of historical analysis and lays the groundwork for further studies of the phenomenon." Colin Jones, Queen Mary University of London "Exhaustively researched, with in-depth analysis, this book is not a light read, but is definitely an interesting read for those who have more than a passing curiosity for the history behind the rise of 'celebrity.'" Feathered Quill Book Reviews "Good history opens up sightlines not only to the past but to the present as well. It allows us to see aspects of our current circumstances as the product of developments that are deeper and richer than we knew... Antoine Lilti's The Invention of Celebrity is a book that does just that. A chronicle of the origins and development of our modern société du spectacle, it provides a genealogy of the media-driven world of celebrities and personalities who now dominate our headlines and crowd (out) our public debates." Literary Review "An original and seminal work of outstanding scholarship that is thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation, "The Invention of Celebrity" is an impressively informative and insightful work that is enhanced with the inclusion of a section of full color illustrations, fifty-six pages of Notes, and a thirteen page Index." Midwest Book Review