Jules Michelet
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Jules Michelet was a French historian and writer. He is best known for his multivolume work Histoire de France, which traces the history of France from the earliest times to the French Revolution. He is considered one of the founders of modern historiography. Michelet was influenced by Giambattista Vico. He admired Vico's emphasis on the role of people and their customs in shaping history, which was a major departure from the emphasis on political and military leaders. Michelet also drew inspiration from Vico's concept of the "corsi e ricorsi", or the cyclical nature of history, in which societies rise and fall in a recurring pattern.
Portrait by Thomas Couture, c. 1865
Vincent van Gogh inscribed his drawing, Sorrow, with a quote from "La Femme": "Comment se fait-il qu'il y ait sur la terre une femme seule?", which translates to How can there be on earth a woman alone?
Portrait of Jules Michelet painted by Thomas Couture, c. 1865
Photograph of Jules Michelet, late in his career
Historian
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A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. Some historians are recognized by publications or training and experience. "Historian" became a professional occupation in the late nineteenth century as research universities were emerging in Germany and elsewhere.
Herodotus (c. 484 – c. 425 BC) was a Greek historian who lived in the fifth century BC and one of the earliest historians whose work survives.
Reproduction of part of a tenth-century copy of Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War.
Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370–1444), the historian who first divided history into the three eras of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Modern times.
A page of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People