Robert Bonnaud (13 November 1929 – 22 January 2013) was a French

anti-colonialist Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence m ...

historian 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 st ...

and professor of history at the

Paris Diderot University Paris Diderot University, also known as Paris 7 (french: Université Paris Diderot), was a French university located in Paris, France. It was one of the inheritors of the historic University of Paris, which was split into 13 universities in 197 ...

. In 1957, following the advice of his friend

Pierre Vidal-Naquet Pierre Emmanuel Vidal-Naquet (; 23 July 1930 – 29 July 2006) was a French historian who began teaching at the '' École des hautes études en sciences sociales'' (EHESS) in 1969. Vidal-Naquet was a specialist in the study of Ancient Greece, bu ...

, he published in '' Esprit'' an article entitled ''La Paix des Nementchas'' (''Nementchas’ Peace''), where he denounced

massacres A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

he witnessed made by the

French army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed Force ...

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

, on the 25th and 26 October 1956. In June 1961, he was arrested and jailed in Marseilles' Baumettes prison as a supporter of the Algerian nationalists of the FLN; Hargreaves calls him "the leader of the

Jeanson network The Jeanson network () was a group of French leftwing militants led by Francis Jeanson who helped Algerian National Liberation Front agents operating in the French metropolitan territory during the Algerian War. They were mainly involved in carry ...

in the Marseilles region". In June 1962, two months after the

Evian agreements Evian ( , ; , stylized as evian) is a French company that bottles and commercialises mineral water from several sources near Évian-les-Bains, on the south shore of Lake Geneva. It produces over 2 billion plastic bottles per year. Today, Evia ...

and the proclamation of Algeria's independence, Bonnaud was released but suspended from all teaching duties. That restriction was lifted two years later and he was formally pardoned in 1966. Bonnaud was born in Marseilles,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. He dedicated his life to the study of

universal history A universal history is a work aiming at the presentation of a history of all of mankind as a whole, coherent unit. A universal chronicle or world chronicle typically traces history from the beginning of written information about the past up to t ...

, and has been presented as a "meta-historian", a "philosopher of history", a theorist of the evolution of the noosphere.. He died, aged 83, in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

References

Bibliography

*''Victoires sur le temps. Essais comparatistes. Polybe le Grec et Siman Qian le Chinois'', Condeixa : La Ligne d'ombr

2007, *''La Cause du Sud – L'Algérie d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, la Palestine, les nations… Ecrits politiques 1956–2000'', Paris : L'Harmattan, 2001, . *''Histoire et historiens de 1900 à nos jours : l'histoire nouvelle. Au-delà de l'histoire'', Paris : Kimé, 2001 (review in ''Cairn'

*''Tournants et périodes ; essai sur les durées historiques et les années récentes'', Kimé, Paris, 2000. *''L'Histoire, le progrès, le communisme. Théories et confidences'', Paris : Kimé, 1997. *''Et pourtant elle tourne !'', Paris : Kimé, 1995. *''La morale et la raison'', Paris : Kimé, 1994. *''Les Succès de l'échec. Où va l'histoire?'', Paris : Arcantère, 1993. *''Les Alternances du progrès. I Une histoire sans préférences'', Paris : Kimé, 1992. *''Le Système de l'histoire'', Paris : Fayard, 1989. *''Les Tournants du XXe siècle – Progrès et régressions'', Paris : L'Harmattan, .

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bonnaud, Robert 1929 births 2013 deaths 20th-century French historians Historians of colonialism French male non-fiction writers

References

Further reading

Bibliography

External links