Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xv
Part 1 The Public Problem
Chapter 1 The Public Domain 3
Love Outside the Public Domain 7
Dead Public Space 14
The Changes in the Public Domain 19
The Past in the Present 30
Chapter 2 Roles 35
Roles 41
Public Roles 46
Public Roles in Cities 48
Proof or Plausibility? 53
Part 2 The Public World of the Ancien Régime
Chapter 3 The Audience: A Gathering of Strangers 59
Who Came to the City 62
Where They Lived 66
Changes in the Urban Bourgeoisie 71
Interchanges at Court and in the City 76
Chapter 4 Public Roles 80
The Body Is a Mannequin 81
Speech Is a Sign 91
The Impersonal Realm Is Passionate 108
Chapter 5 Public and Private 111
There Are Limits on Public Expression 114
Natural Expression Is Outside the Public Realm 117
Public and Private Are Like a Molecule of Society 123
The Molecule Split 124
Chapter 6 Man as Actor 133
The Common-Sense View of Man as Actor 135
Diderot's Paradox of Acting 137
Rousseau's Indictment of the City as Theater 143
Rousseau's Prophecies 151
Part 3 The Turmoil of Public Life in the 19th Century
Chapter 7 The Impact of Industrial Capitalism on Public Life 162
Was the 19th Century Urban Dweller a New Personage? 163
The Localizing of the City 166
Chance and Bourgeois Life 171
Public Commodities 176
Chapter 8 Personality in Public 187
Balzac's Vision of Personality as a Social Principle 192
Personality in Public: New Images of the Body 201
The Stage Tells a Truth the Street No Longer Tells 217
Personality and the Private Family 220
Revolts Against the Past 229
Summary 241
Chapter 9 The Public Men of the 19th Century 243
The Actor 245
The Spectator 256
Chapter 10 Collective Personality 273
1848: Individual Personality Triumphs over Class 279
Gemeinschaft 296
The Dreyfus Affair: Destructive Gemeinschaft 299
Who Is a Real Radical? 313
Part 4 The Intimate Society
Chapter 11 The End of Public Culture 321
Chapter 12 Charisma Becomes Uncivilized 333
The Theories of Charisma 335
Charisma and Ressentiment 343
Electronics Entrenches the Silence of the Past 349
The Star System 355
Chapter 13 Community Becomes Uncivilized 363
Barricades Built Around a Community 366
Barricades Built from Within 372
The Humane Costs of Community 381
Chapter 14 The Actor Deprived of His ART 386
Play Is the Energy for Public Expression 389
Narcissism Enervates This Energy 399
The Mobilization of Narcissism and the Appearance of a New Class 404
Narcissism Is the Protestant Ethic of Modern Times 411
Conclusion: The Tyrannies of Intimacy 416
Epilogue: What Happened to the Public Realm 421
Appendix: "J'Accuse!" 434
Notes 446
Index 465
