BLOCH, MARC

BLOCH, MARC (1886–1944), French historian. Bloch was professor of medieval history at the University of Strasbourg from 1919 to 1936 and then at the Sorbonne. He fought in both world wars and after the fall of France in 1940 was a leader of the Resistance. He was arrested, tortured, and executed by the Gestapo. One of Bloch's most significant works was in the field of French medieval agrarian history, Les caractères originaux de l'histoire rurale française (1931; French Rural History, 1966). A further contribution to economic historiography was his founding (together with Lucien Febvre) of the important review, Annales d'histoire économique et sociale. Bloch's La société féodale (1939–40; Feudal Society, 1961) became a standard work on feudalism. He did not accept the identification of feudalism with military service, the view held in England and Germany, still less the Marxist oversimplification of feudalism as exploitation of peasants by landlords. Instead, he analyzed the structure of feudal society and the relationship between history and economics during that period. In a posthumous work, L'étrange défaite (1946; Strange Defeat, 1949) Bloch affirmed his detachment from the Jewish faith and from all other religious dogmas. Nevertheless, he acknowledged his Jewish descent and his admiration for the tradition of the Hebrew prophets. His other works were L'Ile-de-France (1913); Rois et serfs (1920); Apologie pour l'histoire, ou métier d'historien (1949; The Historian's Craft, 1954). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. Febvre, in: Les Cahiers politiques (March, 1945), 5–11. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. Fink, Marc Bloch: A Life in History (1989); S.W. Friedman, Marc Bloch, Sociology and Geography (1996); E. Bloch, Marc Bloch (1886–1944): Une biographie impossible (1997); O. Dumoulin, Marc Bloch (Fr., 2000). (Avrom Saltman)