Marc Bloch

Marc Bloch (1886–1944) was a French medieval historian and a pioneer of social and economic history. He taught at the University of Strasbourg from 1919 to 1936 and later served as a professor of economic history at the Sorbonne. In 1929, he and Lucien Febvre founded the influential journal Annales d’histoire économique et sociale, which helped establish the interdisciplinary Annales school.

Bloch’s major works include The Royal Touch (1924), French Rural History (1931), and Feudal Society (1939–1940). His unfinished study of historical method, published posthumously as The Historian’s Craft (1949), reflects his approach to historical observation, evidence, and interpretation. During World War II, Bloch joined the French Resistance and was captured and executed by German forces in 1944.