Marc Bloch: A Life in History

Few twentieth-century scholars have achieved such widespread admiration as the French historian Marc Bloch (1886-1944). A soldier in both world wars and leader of the Resistance who was captured, tortured, and died a heroic death, Bloch epitomizes the courage and conviction of an old-fashioned good citizen who recognized his obligation to defend France not only against foreign enemies but also against those who sapped its strength from within. In 1929 Bloch co-founded the now legendary journal, the Annales: a crusading periodical devoted to removing narrow nationalistic and disciplinary barriers, extending historians' investigations to contemporary events, and covering a broad range of social, economic, and cultural phenomena. Bloch is also renowned for his three major research studies--Les rois thaumaturges (The Royal Touch), Les caractères originaux de l'histoire rurale française (French Rural History), and La société féodale (Feudal Society)--and for his two enduring personal testimonies--L'étrange défaite (Strange Defeat), his incisive account of the fall of France in 1940, and Apologie pour l'histoire (The Historian's Craft), his inspiring meditations on his life long work, written on the eve of his joining the Resistance. Carole Fink is the translator of Marc Bloch's Memoirs of War, 1914-1915 (CUP, 1988). She won the American Historical Association's George Louis Beer Prize for her book The Genoa Conference.