Camille-Ernest Labrousse (; 16 March 1895 – 24 May 1988) was a French

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 species; as well as the ...

specializing in social and economic history who was born in

Barbezieux Barbezieux-Saint-Hilaire () is a Communes of France, commune in the Charente Departments of France, department, Southwestern France. The commune was formed in 1973 by the merger of the former communes Barbezieux and Saint-Hilaire.Charente Charente (; Saintongese: ''Chérente''; ) is a department in the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. It is named after the river Charente, the most important and longest river in the department, and also the r ...

and died in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Biography

Labrousse established a historical model centered on three nodes—economic, social and cultural—inventing the quantitative history sometimes now called

cliometrics Cliometrics (, also ), sometimes called 'new economic history' or 'econometric history', is the systematic application of economic theory, econometric techniques, and other formal or mathematical methods to the study of history (especially social a ...

. Eschewing biographies and the narrative accounts of individual witnesses, which have provided the backbone of traditional

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...

, he applied statistical methods and influenced a whole generation.

Fernand Braudel Fernand Paul Achille Braudel (; 24 August 1902 – 27 November 1985) was a French historian. His scholarship focused on three main projects: ''The Mediterranean'' (1923–49, then 1949–66), ''Civilization and Capitalism'' (1955–79), and the un ...

said that if it were not for Labrousse, "historians would never have set to work as willingly as they did on the study of wages and prices". Labrousse's prominence was also a result of his post at the Sorbonne, where he supervised a generation of French post-doctoral ''thèses'' and his organizational skills from the 1950s onward in leading team research efforts that were models of the historian's craft. His first great work was his ''Esquisse du mouvement des prix et des revenus en France au XVIIIe siècle'' ("Sketch of the movement of prices and revenues in France during the 18th century", 1932), the result of his law dissertation under the direction of Albert Aftalion. It synthesizes several data series on prices of food and manufactures, on incomes, including the inflationary rise in land rents, and on lagging wages over the course of the century, as part of the interplay between economic trends and class frictions that led ultimately to revolution. Labrousse's own work concentrated on 18th and 19th-century France, but his constant concern for working methods that could be expanded beyond his subjects at hand to inspect other parts of the

early modern The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

world and the world that was transformed by the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

, is exemplified in the range of studies in the ''hommage'' of his pupils and their pupils that was edited by Braudel and others, ''Conjoncture économique, structures sociales'' (Paris 1974). The "Labrousse model" of the

subsistence crisis A subsistence crisis affects individuals or communities unable to obtain basic necessities due to either man-made or natural factors such as inflation, drought or war."The European subsistence crisis of 1845–1850: a comparative perspective", h ...

in the preindustrial grain-and-textiles economy of France and its effect in precipitating the French Revolution, detailed in the second of his two magisterial works, ''La Crise de l’économie française'' (1943), which Fernand Braudel called "the greatest work of history to have appeared in France in the course of the last twenty-five years."Braudel, "Histoire et Science Sociale: La Longue Durée" (1958) ''Annales E.S.C.'' 13.4 (October–December 1958:725-753), quoted by Potter 2010. Labrousse's social and economic rendering of the Revolution is summarized in the hundred pages he contributed to ''Le XVIIIe Siecle: Revolution Intellectuelle, Technique et Politique (1715-1815)'' with Roland Mousnier and Marc Bouloiseau (Paris: PUF) 1953). has especially wide application, though his

paradigm In science and philosophy, a paradigm ( ) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word ''paradigm'' is Ancient ...

has been adjusted by subsequent studies that have reintroduced complexities.

Major works

* ''Esquisse du mouvement des prix et des revenus en France au XVIIIe siècle'', 2 vols. (Paris:Dalloz) 1932. * ''La Crise de l’économie française à la fin de l'ancien régime et au début de la Révolution'' (Paris:PUF) 1943, which gained him a chair at the Sorbonne. It was introduced to an English-speaking audience by

Shepard B. Clough Shepard Bancroft Clough (December 6, 1901 – June 7, 1990) was an American economic historian. He was a professor of European history at Columbia University. Biography Clough was born on December 6, 1901, in Bloomington, Indiana, and moved to Le ...

in a review article "The Crisis in French Economy at the Beginning of the Revolution", ''The Journal of Economic History'' (1946) pp 191–96. * ''Histoire économique et sociale de la France'', 3 vols. (Paris:PUF) 1970-79.

Notes

References

ADPF, "Histoire et historiens en France depuis 1945"
(in French)

Biography

Major works

Notes

References

Further reading