Georges Lefebvre
Georges Lefebvre ( born August 6, 1874 in Lille, † August 28, 1959 in Paris) was a French historian who was considered in his time as a leading authority on the French Revolution, with a considerable reputation as a scholar, the most prestigious magazine on the subject, the Annales historiques de la Révolution française, published and held the position of a professor of the history of the French Revolution at the Sorbonne.
Life and work
La Révolution Française His main work was published in 1951. Upon the death of Albert Mathiez ( 1874-1932 ) this is the next authoritative French Revolution a French historian of the political left.
Throughout his life he was a socialist, about the time of the Second World War he became increasingly influenced by Marxism. He often wrote from the perspective that would have taken after his feeling a farmer of time, as in his seminal work Les Paysans du Nord pendant la Révolution française ( 1924). Lefebvre was influenced by the Marxist idea that history should be interested in economic structures and class relations.
Lefebvre's account of the origins of the French Revolution was in Quatre- Vingt -Neuf ( Siebzehnhundertneunundachtzig ) written and published in 1939 to mark the day of remembrance of the events of the "Great Fear" (French " Grande Peur ') of 1789. The be incurred in the following year Vichy government but did not want a story from the left wing or the revolution -minded sympathetic understanding, as it was supported by the anti- Republican right. The regime banned the book and ordered to burn 8000 copies. As a result, the work was virtually unknown in his home country until it was reprinted in 1970. His reputation was already secure in the Anglophone world, but since his English translation of the French Revolution The Coming (1947 ) it has been written than expected, but subtle classic established. It remains the definitive statement of the Marxist interpretation of the reasons for the revolution. His follow richest work, La Révolution française ( revised edition, 1951), was translated into English in two volumes: The French Revolution ( 1962-4 ) and The French Revolution from 1793 to 1799 (1964). He also wrote a study of the famous general and ruler in French history: Napoléon ( 4th edition 1953, translated in 2 volumes, 1969).
Writings
- Les Paysans du Nord pendant la Révolution française ( 1924).
- Quatre- Vingt -Neuf (1939, 1970), German under the title 1789: the year of the revolution
- La Révolution Française (1951 )
- Napoléon (Eng. 1955)
- La Grande Peur de 1789. Paris 1932
- Études sur la Révolution française in 1954