French Historians, 1900–2000: New Historical Writing in Twentieth-Century France ed. by Philip Daileader and Philip Whalen (review)

Readers of this journal will not need to be told of the prominent place that French historians occupied in the twentieth century. No other country has contributed more to the shaping of the discipline of history in this period and none has had a greater impact on the historical profession. It is, however, useful to be reminded from time to time of the scale of the achievement. And this edited volume does precisely that. In their helpful Introduction, the editors provide an overview of how the amateur historian in the nineteenth century was replaced by the professional historian in the twentieth, and how, following the First World War, French historians earned a reputation for unsurpassed innovation and accomplishment, a process reaching its apogee in the mid-1970s and after. The scientific history modelled on German methods was first displaced by Marxist historiography and subsequently by the Annales School, founded in 1929, whose approach to history writing was to have worldwide influence. Wisely, the editors point out that not every important French historian could be included in the collection. Their ambition was to ‘do justice to fields that have played an especially important role in French historiographical developments’ and ‘to give readers some sense of just how wide-ranging [. . .] French historical scholarship has been’ (p. xxvii). So, apart from one Belgian, non-native francophones have been excluded, as has the current generation of now not-so-young historians. The editors have succeeded admirably in their task, producing a rich treasure trove of essays on many of the great and less great of French history writing. All of the essays are clearly written, and each one unfailingly discloses elements of either the work or the life of its subject with which readers (the present reviewer included) may well be unfamiliar. There are, of course, deeply appreciative essays on the likes of Fernand Braudel (described as the historian of his age), Roger Chartier, Michel Foucault, and François Furet, but also admiring and informative essays on figures such as Élie Halévy, Jacques Godechot, Albert Mathiez, and René Rémond. There is a delightful essay on Mona Ozouf that nicely catches the importance of her Breton roots. François Simiand is given due credit for the methodological and theoretical innovations that undermined traditional concerns with high politics and great events. There are also essays about figures such as Henri Sée and the still-living Jean Delameau, whose contributions, while significant, remain little known among anglophone readers. For all the variety, elements of a picture emerge. Despite the dominance of a select number of Parisian educational institutions in this story, a surprising number of France’s twentieth-century historians have come from modest, provincial backgrounds. The enthusiasm for global history cannot disguise the fact that most French historians have written about France and have been relatively impervious to outside influences. Many have been important public figures. It is also hard not to conclude that the glory days are over. For the most part, the essays have extremely useful guides to further reading. It is a shame that there is no index or system of cross-referencing.