is regarded as one of the greatest historians of 17th- and 18th-century literature and culture, in particular that of France. He has been a professor at the Collège de France since 1986, and was elected a member of the Académie Française in 1995. His research into the French rhetorical tradition and its significance to present-day culture is monumental and unsurpassed. His most important books include L’âge de l’éloquence: rhétorique et ‘res literaria’ de la Renaissance au seuil de l’époque classique (1980), La diplomatie de l’esprit, de Montaigne à La Fontaine (1995), Chateaubriand. Poésie et Terreur (2003) and Exercices de lecture. De Rabelais à Paul Valéry (2006). Fumaroli was responsible for the publication of Histoire de la rhétorique dans l’Europe moderne, 1450-1950 (1999), a 1500-page standard work with contributions by 24 academics from all over Europe. Fumaroli has rarely remained neutral in recent cultural debates. In L’Etat culturel (1991), for instance, he condemned the state’s role as ‘guide’ in cultural affairs and the glorification of ‘modernity’ in today’s culture. Fumaroli has been a guest lecturer at numerous universities in countries including Italy and the United States, where he is a memberof the highly prestigious Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago.