Bloch, Marc Léopold Benjamin (1886–1944)
The French historian Marc Bloch (1886–1944) is one of the authors most frequently cited by those working in contemporary historical disciplines around the world. This immense influence is founded on both scholarly and biographical grounds. As one of the founders, together with Lucien Febvre, of the journal ‘ Annales d'histoire economique et sociale ’ in 1929, and as a pioneer in the field of the history of society and mentality, a historical theoretician, and a critical intellectual who was executed by the Gestapo in 1944, Bloch has become an inspiration and model for generations of researchers working in a diverse range of scientific fields and from a variety of different political perspectives.