I like a good part of Darnton's essay - I'm delighted he flags up stuff like the scene in David's studio, but towards the end he has the tone a bit like someone lifting up a stone and watching the ants scurry around, if you see what I mean. Academics love academic spats - but I didn't think he really appreciated that the political issues involved ran so deep in countries outside the 'iron curtain', too. Maybe that wasn't clear till the late 80's , though - Thatcherism and Reaganomics hadn't hit their stride by 1984.
I'd be interested to know if he (or anyone) has written at length on 'Pauvre Bitos', which is a thoroughly loathsome piece of work but I think says a hell of a lot about the times it was written in. In a way, I'm surprised, if Darnton's essay is accurate, that Robespierre was still being held in high esteem by Mitterand and co in the 80's, because I'd got the impression he kind of fell between two stools by that point - always loathed by the right, his 'purity' disconcerting to a somewhat tarnished section of the war generation, and the 68-er generation preferred the Enrages and Babeuf. In '58, his bicentennary, the French govt. very publicly refused to commemorate him.