Laughter and power are here examined in a variety of contexts ranging from the satires of Renaissance Humanism through to the polemics of contemporary journalism. How do the powerful use laughter as a cultural weapon which reinforces their position How do the powerless use laughter as a last resort in their selfdefence Sixteenthcentury intellectuals applied their satires to a campaign against intolerance. Seventeenthcentury absolutism demanded of comedy that it serve its interests. Yet subversive humour survived even at the court and led through the Enlightenment to its apogee in the black humour of Sade. Twentiethcentury experimental fiction owes that trend a conscious debt. Meanwhile an aesthetic tradition represented here by Flaubert Beckett and Queneau incites a laughter which releases tension rather than raising awareness. As humour theorists Bergson Freud and Koestler help focus these concerns.