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Marc Bloch Quotes

1886–1944 France

Marc Bloch (6 July 1886 – 16 June 1944) was a French historian, soldier and resistance fighter who, together with Lucien Febvre and Henri Hauser, was the co-founder of the enormously influential Annales School of historiography. The author of a variety of books, including his magnum opus The Historian's Craft, which he wrote as a political prisoner prior to his execution by the Gestapo for his work in the French Resistance, Bloch was instrumental to the foundation of the Annales.

France
Historians

Random Marc Bloch quote

8 quotes

"The good historian is like the giant of the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh, there his quarry lies."

"Misunderstanding of the present is the inevitable consequence of ignorance of the past.

For in the last analysis it is human consciousness which is the subject matter of history.

"There is no true understanding without a certain range of comparison."

"The historian is, by definition, absolutely incapable of observing the facts which he examines."

"But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavour toward better understanding."

"Thenceforth they thought that, rationally concluded, doubt could become an instrument of knowledge."

"Successive technological revolutions have immeasurably widened the psychological gap between generations. With some reason, perhaps, the man of the age of electricity and of the airplane feels himself removed from his masters."

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Marc Bloch (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.