Marc Bloch

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Marc Bloch

Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch (

Medieval France over the course of his career. As an academic, he worked at the University of Strasbourg (1920 to 1936), the University of Paris (1936 to 1939), and the University of Montpellier
(1941 to 1944).

Born in

modern historian Lucien Febvre. Together they founded the Annales School and began publishing the journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale in 1929. Bloch was a modernist in his historiographical approach, and repeatedly emphasised the importance of a multidisciplinary engagement towards history, particularly blending his research with that on geography
, sociology and economics, which was his subject when he was offered a post at the University of Paris in 1936.

During the

executed by firing squad. Several works—including influential studies like The Historian's Craft and Strange Defeat
—were published posthumously.

His historical studies and his death as a member of the Resistance together made Bloch highly regarded by generations of post-war French historians; he came to be called "the greatest historian of all time".[1] By the end of the 20th century, historians were making a more sober assessment of Bloch's abilities, influence, and legacy, arguing that there were flaws to his approach.

Youth and upbringing

Family

Marc Bloch was born in Lyon on 6 July 1886,

Roman History at the Sorbonne, and the family moved to Paris[10]—"the glittering capital of the Third Republic".[11] Marc had a brother, Louis Constant Alexandre,[5] seven years his senior. The two were close, although Bloch later described Louis as being occasionally somewhat intimidating.[3] The Bloch family lived at 72, Rue d'Alésia, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. Gustave began teaching Marc history while he was still a boy,[3] with a secular, rather than Jewish, education intended to prepare him for a career in professional French society.[12] Bloch's later close collaborator, Lucien Febvre, visited the Bloch family at home in 1902;[3] although the reason for Febvre's visit is now unknown, he later wrote of Bloch that "from this fleeting meeting, I have kept the memory of a slender adolescent with eyes brilliant with intelligence and timid cheeks—a little lost then in the radiance of his older brother, future doctor of great prestige".[13]

Upbringing and education

Bloch's biographer Katherine Stirling ascribed significance to the era in which Bloch was born: the middle of the

Dreyfusard movement and his son agreed with the cause.[14]

Bloch was educated at the prestigious

maître de conferences in 1887).[19] His father had been nicknamed le Méga by his students at the ÉNS and the moniker Microméga was bestowed upon Bloch.[20][note 5] Here he was taught history by Christian Pfister[21] and Charles Seignobos, who led a relatively new school of historical thought which saw history as broad themes punctuated by tumultuous events.[6] Another important influence on Bloch from this period was his father's contemporary, the sociologist Émile Durkheim, who pre-figured Bloch's own later emphasis on cross-disciplinary research.[6] The same year, Bloch visited England; he later recalled being struck more by the number of homeless people on the Victoria Embankment than the new Entente Cordiale relationship between the two countries.[22]

The Dreyfus affair had soured Bloch's views of the French Army, and he considered it laden with "snobbery, anti-semitism and anti-republicanism".[23] National service had been made compulsory for all French adult males in 1905, with an enlistment term of two years.[24] Bloch joined the 46th Infantry Regiment based at Pithiviers from 1905 to 1906.[23]

Early research

Scan of the piece of paper on which Bloch promises to work for ten years
Bloch's official engagement papers for the l'École Normale Supérieure in 1908 for a 10-year period

By this time, changes were taking place in French academia. In Bloch's own speciality of history, attempts were being made at instilling a more scientific methodology. In other, newer departments such a sociology, efforts were made at establishing an independent identity.

Vidal de la Blache whose Tableau de la géographie Bloch had studied at the ÉNS,[27] and Lucien Gallois.[26] Bloch applied unsuccessfully for a fellowship at the Fondation Thiers.[28] As a result,[28] he travelled to Germany in 1909[4] where he studied demography under Karl Bücher in Leipzig and religion[21] under Adolf Harnack in Berlin;[4] he did not, however, particularly socialise with fellow students while in Germany.[20] He returned to France the following year and again applied to the Fondation, this time successfully.[28] Bloch researched the medieval Île-de-France[4] in preparation for his thesis.[10] This research was Bloch's first focus on rural history.[29] His parents had moved house and now resided at the Avenue d'Orleans, not far from Bloch's quarters.[30][note 6]

Bloch's research at the Fondation

University of Amiens.[4] While there, he wrote a review of Febvre's first book, Histoire de Franche-Comté.[35] Bloch intended to turn his thesis into a book, but the First World War intervened.[36][note 8]

First World War