Robert Darnton (born May 10, 1939) is an American cultural historian, recognized as a leading expert on eighteenth-century France.
He graduated from Harvard University in 1960, attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship, and earned a Ph.D. (D. Phil.) in history from Oxford in 1964, where he studied with Richard Cobb, among others. He worked as reporter at The New York Times from 1964 to 1965. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982, and was President of the American Historical Association in 1999.
He joined the Princeton University faculty in 1968, and was Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History. Darnton is a pioneer in the field of the history of the book. He currently is writing about electronic publishing. He is founder of the Gutenberg-e program, sponsored by Mellon Foundation.
His brother is the retired New York Times editor and author John Darnton, and his father was the war correspondent Byron Darnton.