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History Continues
In this engaging intellectual autobiography, Georges Duby looks back on a career that has led him to be called one of the most distinguished historians in the Western world.
Since its beginning in the 1940s, Duby's career has been rich and varied, encompassing economic history, social history, the history of mentalites , art history, microhistory, urban history, the history of women and sexuality, and, most recently, the Church's influence on feudal society. In retracing this singular career path, Duby candidly remembers his life's most formative influences, including the legendary historians Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, the Annales School so closely associated with them, and the College de France.
Duby also offers insights about the proper methods of gathering and using archival data and on constructing penetrating interpretations of the documents. Indeed, his discussion of how he chose his subjects, collected his materials, developed the arguments, erected the scaffolding and constructed his theses offers the best introduction to the craft available to aspiring historians.
Candid and charming, this book is both a memoir of one of this century's great scholars and a history of the French historical school since the mid-twentieth century. It will be required reading for anyone interested in the French academic milieu, medieval history, French history, or the recording of history in general.
Georges Duby, a member of the Academie francaise, for many years held the distinguished chair in medieval history at the College de France. His numerous books include The Age of Cathedrals ; The Knight, the Lady, and the Priest ; Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages ; and The Three Orders —all published by the University of Chicago Press.
Since its beginning in the 1940s, Duby's career has been rich and varied, encompassing economic history, social history, the history of mentalites , art history, microhistory, urban history, the history of women and sexuality, and, most recently, the Church's influence on feudal society. In retracing this singular career path, Duby candidly remembers his life's most formative influences, including the legendary historians Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, the Annales School so closely associated with them, and the College de France.
Duby also offers insights about the proper methods of gathering and using archival data and on constructing penetrating interpretations of the documents. Indeed, his discussion of how he chose his subjects, collected his materials, developed the arguments, erected the scaffolding and constructed his theses offers the best introduction to the craft available to aspiring historians.
Candid and charming, this book is both a memoir of one of this century's great scholars and a history of the French historical school since the mid-twentieth century. It will be required reading for anyone interested in the French academic milieu, medieval history, French history, or the recording of history in general.
Georges Duby, a member of the Academie francaise, for many years held the distinguished chair in medieval history at the College de France. His numerous books include The Age of Cathedrals ; The Knight, the Lady, and the Priest ; Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages ; and The Three Orders —all published by the University of Chicago Press.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
166 pages, Paperback
First published February 28, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 12, 2025
I've learned a lot about the work of Duby (1919-1996) and the rest of the Annales authors during my university years. His ars poetica is clearly articulated in this small volume and I would whole-heartedly recommend this to all lovers of history, research and the medieval world in general. Last time I had such eureka moments was when I read Umberto Eco's "How to write a thesis?" or even some parts of Huizinga's "The Waning of the Middle Ages". Duby also gives many practical hints and tips how to approach research in general and how his professional life unfolded during his career. While he's at it, we also get a great snippets of the 20th century, from the hardships of the German occupation of France during WWII and its impact on the science, the 1968 developments and the impact on French universities in general, the fall of communism in 1989-1990 etc.
His insights about approaching research of medieval diplomas and bullas is great, his writing is very inspirational to all historians or for those who are considering picking up this trade. He considered himself marxist, which was a very different thing in France compared to the countries behind the Iron Curtain. I greatly enjoyed this short book of around 150 pages and I recommend it to all lovers of history and historical thinking. I will surely be reading the rest of his books that are available in Hungarian.
His insights about approaching research of medieval diplomas and bullas is great, his writing is very inspirational to all historians or for those who are considering picking up this trade. He considered himself marxist, which was a very different thing in France compared to the countries behind the Iron Curtain. I greatly enjoyed this short book of around 150 pages and I recommend it to all lovers of history and historical thinking. I will surely be reading the rest of his books that are available in Hungarian.
October 9, 2013
By the author of L'an mil and other great books on marriage + love in the middle ages.
Wonderful, deliberately dry book about Duby's beginning as an historian and a medievalist, which begins with very slow, almost intentionally off-putting material about finding one's subject, "the Thesis," passing hurdles in the French academic system, etc. He was an Annales adherent, but there is little about the glamour-he came of age during the Occupation, and he begs the reader's understanding that while Marc Bloch got all the gloire, his colleague Lucien Febvre
"lately has been receiving rather bad press. People who don't know what it took to hold firm and not give in while France was under the heel of the Germans have been criticising him for his determination to keep the Annales in print during the occupation." This took some courage to say in 1994, when Duby wrote this.
Another memorable passage- about how his travels to North Africa and later to Iran, Central America and East Asia taught him what he had been writing about in medieval history. He learned what portus and mercatus meant in the 9th century capitularies by watching how sheep were sold in Ghardaia; understood the function of money in 11th century Europe by passing thru the rows of beggars and money-changers in Benares. "I visited more than one Carolingian village on the outskirts of Xi-Han and in the plain of the Ganges."
"On another day, in one of the meager olive groves that dot the wadi which runs from Foum-Zguid down toward the Draa, I shook the hand of a slave. He was digging in the sun. Seated in his shadow, his master kept an eye on him. He scarcely touched the baksheesh we gave him for heloing to change a wheel..his master pocketed the money. It was the year 1000 and I was speaking to Aleume, servus of Cluny, and to Achard de Merze', knight, and the only sentiment I could detact was a rather cordial understanding between the two men, who stood in a hierarchical relationship to each other that for them required no explanation."
This must go back to the library-one of those books that I wish I could keep on my desk forever not to look up references or formulations but like the bust of a great author, as a touchstone. (I do have a bust of Borges, but it is so ugly that he looks sightlessly out the window, away from me.)
Wonderful, deliberately dry book about Duby's beginning as an historian and a medievalist, which begins with very slow, almost intentionally off-putting material about finding one's subject, "the Thesis," passing hurdles in the French academic system, etc. He was an Annales adherent, but there is little about the glamour-he came of age during the Occupation, and he begs the reader's understanding that while Marc Bloch got all the gloire, his colleague Lucien Febvre
"lately has been receiving rather bad press. People who don't know what it took to hold firm and not give in while France was under the heel of the Germans have been criticising him for his determination to keep the Annales in print during the occupation." This took some courage to say in 1994, when Duby wrote this.
Another memorable passage- about how his travels to North Africa and later to Iran, Central America and East Asia taught him what he had been writing about in medieval history. He learned what portus and mercatus meant in the 9th century capitularies by watching how sheep were sold in Ghardaia; understood the function of money in 11th century Europe by passing thru the rows of beggars and money-changers in Benares. "I visited more than one Carolingian village on the outskirts of Xi-Han and in the plain of the Ganges."
"On another day, in one of the meager olive groves that dot the wadi which runs from Foum-Zguid down toward the Draa, I shook the hand of a slave. He was digging in the sun. Seated in his shadow, his master kept an eye on him. He scarcely touched the baksheesh we gave him for heloing to change a wheel..his master pocketed the money. It was the year 1000 and I was speaking to Aleume, servus of Cluny, and to Achard de Merze', knight, and the only sentiment I could detact was a rather cordial understanding between the two men, who stood in a hierarchical relationship to each other that for them required no explanation."
This must go back to the library-one of those books that I wish I could keep on my desk forever not to look up references or formulations but like the bust of a great author, as a touchstone. (I do have a bust of Borges, but it is so ugly that he looks sightlessly out the window, away from me.)
June 20, 2020
A fairly moving and enlightening piece of work that is suggested to anyone who strives to be a medieval historian. Georges Duby is one of the most celebrated medieval historians in recent decades, and here he sheds light, not on his personal life, but on his career as a historian. Duby makes mention of how certain historians (Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel) could make academic historical writing jump off the page. He seems to have taken this to heart, as he certainly writes in expressive prose that really elevates what may be read as simply a successful and varied life in academia into something more exciting, to say the least. Perhaps of greatest interest to future historians is his elucidation of how he would the documentary sources he utilized in his thèse and tour de erudition, La société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise. Altogether, this memoir (of sorts) is compelling and, for some I'm sure, has the potential to inspire.
February 1, 2025
Un libro autobiográfico y de reflexion historiografica fácil de leer y muy inspirador para un historiador medieval
November 30, 2018
Deze had ik al eens gelezen, in de tijd dat de dieren nog konden spreken in 1992 of 1993. Destijds hing zelfs een recensie van ene Peter Vandermeersch over de Nederlandse vertaling op de deur van mijn kot - ja, ik was zo’n pipo. Een kwarteeuw later nog steeds even fascinerend om het parcours van een van de invloedrijkste Franse historici van de 20e eeuw te volgen. En de geschiedenis gaat door.
March 26, 2015
Ένα βιβλίο για μια διαδρομή αγάπης,απλά.Αν δεν αγαπάς δεν το συνεχίζεις,δεν το ασκείς,δεν το ακολουθείς,δεν το ερευνάς.Γραμμένο το 1991,μτφ. το 1995:τρελά διαχρονικό και ενθαρρυντικό για έναν δημιουργικό αγώνα!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews