Public Drinking and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century ParisAdding a new dimension to the history of mentalites and the study of popular culture, Thomas Brennan reinterprets the culture of the laboring classes in old regime Paris through the rituals of public drinking in neighborhood taverns. He challenges the conventional depiction of lower class debauchery and offers a reassessment of popular sociability. Using the records of the Parisian police, he lets the common people describe their own behavior and