Natalie Zemon Davis, Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto and one of the world’s most creative and influential historians, recounts her own life as a scholar and a woman in this new book. Her path-breaking work has added profoundly to our understanding of early modern society and culture. She rescues men and women from oblivion using her unique combination of rich imagination, keen intelligence, and archival sleuthing to uncover the past. Davis brings to life a dazzling cast of extraordinary people, revealing their thoughts, emotions, and choices in the world in which they lived. Thanks to Davis we can meet the impostor Arnaud du Tilh in her classic, The Return of Martin Guerre, follow three remarkable lives in Women on the Margins, and journey alongside a traveler and scholar in Trickster Travels as he moves between the Muslim and Christian worlds. In these conversations with Denis Crouzet, professor of history at the Sorbonne and well-known specialist on the French Wars of Religion, Davis examines the practices of history and controversies in historical method. Their discussion reveals how Davis has always pursued the thrill and joy of discovery through historical research. Her quest is influenced by growing up Jewish in the Midwest as a descendant of emigrants from Eastern Europe. Natalie Zemon Davis reminds the reader of the broad possibilities to be found by studying the lives of those who came before us, and teaches us how to give voice to what was once silent.

 

 

Truman State University Press,

Available in Canada from Scholarly Book Services Inc.

ISBN: 9781931112970 | paper | $26.00 CAD

A PASSION FOR HISTORY:

Conversations with Denis Crouzet

By Natalie Zemon Davis, Winner of the 2010

Holberg Prize for Humanities