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.

Biography

Born at Lyon, 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 which wanted Middle Ages kings to be able to cure the disease of scrofula simply by touching the people suffering from it. This tradition has its roots in the magical role covered by kings in ancient societies. This work by Bloch had a great impact not only in the social history of Middle Ages but also in 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 Germans. 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.

Legacy

The "predation" economy described by Bloch in Feudal Society (1961) hasn't, according to some economist, completely disappeared. Thus, in 2006, Michel Volle, economist and former INSEE administrator, wrote the following message in support to Denis Robert's investigations concerning the Clearstream Affair:

I believe that the actual economy is composed by two types of relations: balanced exchanged, where both parties have the same power to refuse or accept the transaction; and predation, where one of the party is in the position to impose the transaction to 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 (controls 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 of the fruits of corruption... This, and not the First Employment Contract, should have provoqued the demonstrations ! But, as you say, medias are what predators control the best".

References