Robert Mandrou

Robert Mandrou (* January 31, 1921, † 25 March 1984) was a French historian of the time of the 17th and 18th centuries. He is expected to Annales school and dealt with cultural history ( Histoire des Mentalités ).

Mandrou came from a humble background, his mother was a seamstress, his father railroad workers. During World War II he was obliged to voluntary labor service in Germany and worked as a lumberman in the resin. But he still retained a tendency to Germany and was well acquainted with the German historical literature.

He was a pupil of Lucien Febvre and received in 1950 his Agrégation in history and was from 1954 to 1962 secretary of the journal Annales d' histoire économique et sociale. He gave up the post after an argument with Fernand Braudel on the intellectual heritage of Lucien Febvre. In 1957 he was Directeur d' études at the École pratique des hautes études, and in 1968 professor at the University of Paris- Nanterre. In the same year his Thèse de Doctorat appeared (corresponding to today's Habilitation ) on the official relation to witchcraft in 17th century France. In 1977, the französche historical mission ( Mission Historique Française en Allemagne ) at the Max Planck Institute for History in Göttingen and took in a paper on the Fugger the first attempt of the French Annales school, a subject German history of the early modern period with its methods to treat. For health reasons, he had to take early retirement in 1980.

Known to his history of French civilization with Georges Duby (1958 ) was. With Philippe Ariès, with whom he was friends, he published the series Civilisations et Mentalités at Plon.

He had interest in Central European History and sympathized with the Prague Uprising in 1968, about which he published a book. In 1984 he also wrote a preface to the French translation of the history of Bohemia by Josef Macek.

Writings

• Georges Duby with Histoire de la civilization française, 2 volumes, Paris, Armand Colin, 1958, 1964 ( English translation: A History of French Civilization, Random House, 1964)
• Introduction à la France moderne. Essai de psychologie historique, Paris, Éditions Albin Michel, 1961, 1974, 1998 ( English translation: Introduction to Modern France 1500-1640, Edward Arnold 1975)
• De la culture populaire en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Éditions Stock, 1964.
• Classes et de Luttes classes dans la France du XVIIe siècle, Florence, D' Anna, 1965.
• La France des XVIe et XVIIe siècle, Paris, PUF, Coll. Nouvelle Clio, 1967, 1987, 1996
• Magistrate sorciers et en France au XVIIe siècle, Paris, Plon, 1968 ( dissertation)
• Les Fugger, propriétaires Fonciers s Souabe ( fin du siècle XVIe ), Paris, Plon, 1969. German edition: Die Fugger as landowners in Swabia, 1560-1618, Publications of the Max Planck Institute for History, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1997, 2nd edition 1998

• German edition: reason of state and reason (1649-1775), Propylaea history of Europe, Propylaea Verlag 1990