Marc Bloch
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Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch (July 6, 1886 – June 16, 1944) was a French historian of medieval France in the period between the First and Second World Wars, and a founder of the Annales School. Bloch was shot by the Gestapo during the German occupation of France for his work in the French Resistance and for his Jewish ancestry.
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[edit] Biography
Born at Lyon in a Jewish family, the son of the professor of ancient history Gustave Bloch, Marc studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and Foundation Thiers in Paris, then at Berlin and Leipzig. He was in the infantry in World War I and won the Légion d'honneur.
After the war, he went to the university at Strasbourg, then in 1936 succeeded Henri Hauser as professor of economic history at the Sorbonne. A part of the University of Strasbourg is now named after him (see Marc Bloch University).
In 1924 he published one of his most famous works Les rois thaumaturges: étude sur le caractère surnaturel attribué à la puissance royale particulièrement en France et en Angleterre (sometimes translated in English as The magic working kings or The royal touch: sacred monarchy and scrofula in England and France) in which he collected, described and studied the documents pertaining to the ancient tradition that the kings of the Middle Ages were able to cure the disease of scrofula simply by touching people suffering from it. This tradition has its roots in the magical role of kings in ancient societies. This work by Bloch had a great impact not only on the social history of Middle Ages but also on cultural anthropolgy.
In 1929, Bloch founded, with Lucien Febvre, the important journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale (now called Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations) whose name came to be attached to an historical approach called the Annales School. Bloch's most important work centered on the study of feudalism.
Bloch has had lasting influence in the field of historiography through his unfinished manuscript The Historian's Craft, which he was working on when he was killed by the Nazis. Bloch's book and What is History? by Edward Carr are often considered two of the most important historiographical works of the 20th century.
Bloch's last book, Strange Defeat (published posthumously), was a brief assessment of the rapid failure of the French army to repel the German Blitzkrieg in 1940. Bloch was shot by the Gestapo during the German occupation of France for his work in the French Resistance and for his Jewish ancestry.
[edit] Legacy
The "predation" economy described by Bloch in Feudal Society (1961) hasn't, according to some economists, completely disappeared. Thus, in 2006, Michel Volle, economist and former INSEE administrator, wrote the following message in support of Denis Robert's investigations concerning the Clearstream Affair:
I believe that the actual economy is composed by two types of relations: balanced exchanges, where both parties have the same power to refuse or accept the transaction; and predation, where one party is in the position to impose the transaction onto the other party. Predation, compensed by charity, is the typical feudal relation (cf. Marc Bloch, The Feudal Society). Balanced exchange has been put in place with the industrial society at the beginning of the 18th century. Predation didn't disappear at this time - the mafia is a feudal organization - but it was in the industrial economy an archaïc remnant. But it is coming back with the automated and computerized economy which founds the actual technic system and in which risk and violence, both extreme, goes in pair (cf. my work "E-conomie" and also F.-X. Verschave, Noir Silence). Therefore, the economy has divided itself in two parts, one working under the balanced exchange regime, and the other under the predation regime. Shakespeare's heroes are coming back! The interface between these two parts is money-laundering, which allows the results of predation to enter the "normal" and legal circuit. Thereby, predators can acquire influence (control of the media and, through them, governments), prestige and honorability; thus bankers, politicians and magistrates that the predators have bought may enjoy in complete tranquillity the fruits of corruption... This, and not the First Employment Contract, should have provoked the demonstrations! But, as you say, the media are what predators control the best". [1]
[edit] References
- ^ (French) "Michel Volle, economist and former INSEE administrator's message to Robert", Denis Robert's blog, April 13, 2006. Retrieved on April 29, 2006.
[edit] Works
- Feudal Society, Tr. L.A. Manyon, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961). ISBN 0-226-05979-0
- Strange Defeat; a Statement of Evidence Written in 1940 (London: Oxford University Press, 1949).
- The Historian's Craft, Tr. Peter Putnam, (New York: Vintage Book, 1953) Original French text: [1]
[edit] Bibliography
- Carole Fink, Marc Bloch: A Life in History (Cambridge University Press, 1989) ISBN 0-521-40671-4
- Joseph Lambie, ed., Architects and Craftmen in History (1956)
- H. Stuart Hughes, The Obstructed Path: French Social Thought in the Years of Desperation, 1930-1960 (1968)
