Febvre, Lucien (1878–1956)

Lucien Febvre, a historian by training, is a central figure in the history of geography as an advocate of the approach of the geographer Paul Vidal de la Blache, particularly after the latter's death in 1918. Born in Nancy in the Lorraine, Febvre received his doctorate in history at the Ecole Normale Superieur in Paris in 1911. He began teaching at the University of Dijon in 1912, but his career was soon interrupted by World War I. He resumed what would become an illustrious scholarly career at the University of Strasbourg in 1919, where he collaborated with fellow historian Marc Bloch. With Bloch, Febvre founded the soon to be prominent journal Annales d'histoire et sociale in 1929, beginning what is now known as the Annales ...