LIVE from NYPL: A Conversation About The Art Of Conversation

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In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, between the reign of Louis XIII and the Revolution, the French nobility of the "ancien regime" developed an art of sociability in which new forms of conversation were central. Four centuries separate us from this period. Conversation isn't what is used to be and yet, writes Benedetta Craveri, "What could be more necessary in democratic societies than conversation consisting of an exchange in which participants are considered equal, where the pursuit of truth is combined with respect for others' opinions, and whose ultimate goal is the pleasure of sharing knowledge?"

Join us for a conversation with:

Benedetta Craveri, author of "The Age of Conversation" (New York Review Books, May 2005.)

Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library.

Anka Muhlstein, author of "Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne & Astolphe de Custine: The Last French Aristocrat".