Histories : French Constructions of the Past

The period from 1945 has been one of the most intellectually fruitful in French history.

Entirely new approaches to a number of fields have been developed, and the influence of French thinkers has resonated throughout the West, in many ways reformulating the approach to modern knowledge.

This text traces developments in French historiography from questions of social history and global history (1945-1960s), structuralism (mid-1960s to mid-1970s), to criticism and reformulations (1980s onwards).

Featuring work by Furet, de Certeau, Perrot, Braudel, Levi Strauss, Foucault, Bourdieu, Wallerstein, Duby and others, this volume illuminates the most important controversies about historical method in the 20th century.

It forms part of a series which charts the evolution and development of disciplines in French thought.