Pierre Chaunu

Pierre René Chaunu (born August 17, 1923 in Belleville-sur-Meuse , † October 22, 2009 in Caen ) was a French historian and professor at the University of Paris IV . Pierre Chaunu was regarded as a specialist in Latin America and the social and religious history of France in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. He was an important representative of the quantitative approach to history in the tradition of the Annales school .

life and work

He was born the son of a railroad worker in the small town of Belleville in Lorraine, on the edge of the Verdun battlefield , and the memory of the recent mass deaths in World War I was one of the defining impressions of his youth. His mother died early and he was raised by his maternal aunt. During the German occupation in Paris, he studied history at the Sorbonne (after initially wavering between medicine and history), with Fernand Braudel and Ernest Labrousse , among others . After graduating in 1947, he was a history teacher at the Lycée in Bar-le-Duc for two years . When in 1948, on the initiative of Braudel and Lucien Febvre, the Annales School found its home in the sixth section of the École practique des hautes études (Chaunu assisted Febvre), Chaunu was given the opportunity to apply its methods to the history of Latin America during the colonial period (published in 1949 he wrote a book about it in the Que-sais-je series). From 1948 to 1951 he conducted research in Madrid and Seville with his wife Huguette Chaunu (Catella). Then he returned and was while evaluating the materials for his dissertation Séville et l'Atlantique until 1956 teacher at the Lycée in Vanves . His dissertation was published in 12 volumes from 1955 to 1960 and in 1960 he received his Doctorat d'Etat (corresponding to a habilitation) from Braudel. From 1956 to 1959 he was a member of the CNRS , became Maitre de conferences in Caen in 1960 and professor in 1962. In 1966 he founded the Center de recherche d'histoire quantitative there . In 1970 he became a professor at the Sorbonne .

Politically, he was conservative and had been close to the Gaullists since his youth. He had a column in Le Figaro from the early 1980s and had a weekly broadcast on Radio Courtoisie ( Les Mardis de la mémoire ) until 2005 . Originally a Catholic, he converted to Protestantism in 1954 and was a lay preacher. He was active in the Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français . In his book Die weisse Pest (1976) and other works he advocates the thesis that Europe and France are experiencing decline because of low birth rates. This also reflected his findings from the early Spanish colonial history of South America, which established his reputation. While he initially assumed the downturn in trade with South America in the early 17th century was caused by trade with China, after examining Pacific trade he concluded that demographic causes were responsible (in just half a century, South America's population was from 80 to 10 million down, largely due to diseases brought in by Europeans). He then turned to the study of the influence of demographic factors on civilizations.

His extensive work Séville et l´Atlantique (his habilitation) illuminated the trade of Spain with its colonies in South America from the quantitative point of view of the Annales school (two of the 12 volumes were devoted to statistical interpretation, one to geography and eight contained tables with Data).

Chaunu continued this from 1960 with studies of the Pacific trade in Spain. In addition to his books and research on early Spanish colonial history, he is best known for La Civilization de l'Europe classique from 1966, the first work of the Annales school that attempted a historical synthesis and economic, geographical and demographic aspects, religion, culture - and included history of science. He also wrote books on historical methodology (including Histoire, science sociale) and French history.

In Caen he founded the Atlas historique de Normandie , the Annales de Normandie and the Cahiers des Annales de Normandie .

Since 1982 he has been a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques and the Institut de France . He was the commander of the Legion of Honor.

Cartoonist Emmanuel Chaunu (* 1966) is among his six children.

Works

German editions:

European culture in the Baroque era , Munich: Droemer / Knaur, 1968, Fischer Taschenbuch 1989 (translator Alfred P. Zeller, original La Civilization de l'Europe classique )
The white plague , Pfullingen: Neske, 1980
The future prevented , Stuttgart: Seewald, 1981
The Roots of Freedom , Munich: Universitas, 1982
Living with history , Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1989
Der Mensch , Zurich: Thesis-Verl., 1996

French books:

Eugène Sue et la seconde republique , 1948
Histoire de l'Amérique latine , Paris, PUF, "Que sais-je?", 1949, new edition 2009.
Séville et l'Atlantique (1504–1650) , Paris, SEVPEN, 12 volumes, 1955–1960. (Prix de Loubat, 1962)
Les Philippines et le Pacifique des Ibériques , Paris, SEVPEN, 2 volumes, 1960–1966.
L'Amérique et les Amériques de la préhistoire à nos jours , Paris, Armand Colin, 1964.
La Civilization de l'Europe classique , Paris, Arthaud, 1966.
L'Expansion européenne du XIII ^e et XV ^e siècles , Paris, PUF, 1969. (English translation European expansion in the later Middle Ages , Amsterdam, North Holland Publishing.)
Conquête et exploitation des nouveaux mondes , Paris, PUF, 1969.
La Civilization de l'Europe des Lumières , Paris, Arthaud, 1971.
L'Espagne de Charles Quint , Paris, SEDES, 2 volumes, 1973.
Démographie historique et système de civilization , Rome, EFR, 1974.
Histoire, science sociale , Paris, SEDES, 1974.
Le Temps des Réformes , Paris, Fayard, 1975.
De l'histoire à la prospective , Paris, Robert Laffont, 1975.
Les Amériques, XVI ^e et XVIII ^e siècles , Paris, Armand Colin, 1976.
with Georges Suffert: La peste blanche , Paris, Gallimard, 1976.
Séville et l'Amérique aux XVI ^e et XVII ^e siècles , Paris, Flammarion, 1977.
La Mort à Paris, XVI ^e et XVII ^e siècles , Paris, Fayard, 1978.
Histoire quantitative, histoire sérielle , Paris, Armand Colin, 1978.
Le sursis , Paris, Robert Laffont, 1978
La France ridée , Paris, Pluriel, 1979
Un futur sans avenir, Histoire et population , Calmann-Lévy, 1979
Histoire et imagination. La transition , Paris, PUF, 1980.
Église, culture et société. Réforme et Contre-Réforme (1517-1620), Paris, SEDES, 1980.
Histoire et décadence , Paris, Perrin, 1981. (received the Grand Prix Gobert 1982)
La France , Paris, Robert Laffont, 1982.
Pour l'histoire , Paris, Perrin, 1984.
L'Aventure de la Réforme. Le monde de Jean Calvin , Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1986 (also translated into English)
Apologie par l'histoire , Paris, Œil, 1988.
Le Grand Déclassement , Paris, Robert Laffont, 1989.
3 millions d'années, 80 milliards de destins , Paris, Robert Laffont, 1990
Reflets et miroir de l'histoire , Economica, Paris, 1990
with Ernest Labrousse : Histoire économique et sociale de la France. Tome 1, 1450-1660 , PUF, "Quadrige", 1993.
Colomb ou la logique de l'imprévisible , Paris, F. Bourin, 1993.
Baptême de Clovis, baptême de la France , (in collaboration), Paris, Balland, 1996.
with others: Le Basculement religieux de Paris au XVIII ^e siècle , Paris, Fayard, 1998.
with Michèle Escamilla: Charles Quint , Paris, Fayard, 2000.
with Jacques Renard: La femme et Dieu , Paris, Fayard, 2001
with Huguette Chaunu, Jacques Renard: Essai de prospective démographique , Paris, Fayard, 2003
Des curés aux entrepreneurs: la Vendée au XX ^e siècle , Center Vendéen de Recherches Historiques, 2004.
with Renaud Escaunde, Jean Tulard , Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie , Jean Sévillia, Jean-Christian Petitfils Le livre noir de la Révolution française , Cerf, 2008

Essays:

with Roger Arnaldez La philosophie et l'histoire , in Jean-François Mattéi, Le Discours philosophique , Encyclopédie philosophique universelle, Volume 4, Paris, PUF, 1998
Bresil et l'Atlantique au 17e siècle , Annales 16, 1961, 1176-1207
Pour une geopolitique de l´espace américain , yearbook for history, economy and state of Latin America, Volume 1, Cologne 1964, 3–26

literature

David Stewart Pierre Chaunu , Philip Daileader, Philip Whalen (editors) French Historians 1900-2000 , Wiley-Blackwell 2010, pp. 105-111
Jean-Pierre Bardet Pierre Chaunu , in Jean-Pierre Bardet, Madeleine Foisil La vie, la mort, la foi, le temps , Paris, 1993
Eric Roussel Pierre Chaunu, un penseur de la liberté , ibid

Web links

Literature by and about Pierre Chaunu in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ Chaunu Le fils de la morte , in Pierre Nora Essais d'Ego-histoire , Paris, 1987
↑ While the tonnage increased by and large steadily up to around 1610 apart from a few setbacks (with the peak 1605–1610) it decreased steadily from then on to 1650. Ficher Weltgeschichte, Volume 22 (South and Central America), p. 272, discussion there based on Chaunu. Between 1560 and 1650, Spain achieved double to four times the value from its imports from South America than its exports.

personal data
SURNAME	Chaunu, Pierre
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Chaunu, Pierre René (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French historian
DATE OF BIRTH	17th August 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH	Belleville-sur-Meuse
DATE OF DEATH	October 22, 2009
Place of death	Caen

[1] Chaunu Le fils de la morte , in Pierre Nora Essais d'Ego-histoire , Paris, 1987

[2] While the tonnage increased by and large steadily up to around 1610 apart from a few setbacks (with the peak 1605–1610) it decreased steadily from then on to 1650. Ficher Weltgeschichte, Volume 22 (South and Central America), p. 272, discussion there based on Chaunu. Between 1560 and 1650, Spain achieved double to four times the value from its imports from South America than its exports.