Serge Gruzinski (born 5 November 1949) is 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 ...

. He is a Latin America specialist.

Career

In 1969, he entered the

École Nationale des Chartes The École Nationale des Chartes (; ) is a French ''grande école'' and a constituent college of Université PSL, specialising in the auxiliary sciences of history, historical sciences. It was founded in 1821, and was located initially at the A ...

and prepared a thesis on sixteenth-century Flanders under the direction of

Pierre Goubert Pierre Goubert (; 25 January 1915 – 16 January 2012) was a French historian. A member of the Annales School, he is considered one of the founders of historical demography and modern rural history. He was a noted specialist on the 17th century ...

. In 1970, a trip to

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

awakened his interest in this country. He was a member of the

École française de Rome The École française de Rome (EFR) is a French research institute for history, archaeology, and the social sciences; overseen by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and a division of the Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur et ...

from 1973 to 1975 and the

Casa de Velázquez The ''Casa de Velázquez'' is a French school in Spain modelled on the Villa Médicis in Rome, and Villa Abd-el-Tif in Algeria.''75 aniversario de la Casa de Velázquez. Memoria gráfica 1928-2003'', Madrid, Casa de Velázquez, 2006, 182 p. - acc ...

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

. In 1983, he joined the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

where he became research director in 1989. He is also the director of studies at the

School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (, EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The school awards Master and PhD degrees alone and conjo ...

since 1993. Gruzinski is interested in the colonisation of the Americas and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

, especially the colonial experiences like those

cross-cultural Cross-cultural may refer to: *cross-cultural studies, a comparative tendency in various fields of cultural analysis *cross-cultural communication, a field of study that looks at how people from differing culture, cultural backgrounds communicate * ...

areas, birth of hybrid spaces and

first First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

manifestations of

globalisation Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

. With Carmen Bernand, he published and two volumes of . He is the author of , a richly illustrated pocket book from the

collection Collection or Collections may refer to: Computing * Collection (abstract data type), the abstract concept of collections in computer science * Collection (linking), the act of linkage editing in computing * Garbage collection (computing), autom ...

“

Découvertes Gallimard (, ; in United Kingdom: ''New Horizons'', in United States: ''Abrams Discoveries'') is an Collection (publishing), editorial collection of Book illustration, illustrated monographic books published by the Éditions Gallimard in Pocket edition, ...

”, which has been translated into nine languages, including English. In 2004, he was curator of the exhibition “” at the Musée du quai Branly. In 2015, he won the International Grand Prize for History at the 22nd International Congress of Historical Sciences (ICHS).

Selected publications

* ''Le destin brisé de l’empire aztèque'', collection «

» (nº 33), série Histoire. Éditions Gallimard, 1988 (new edition in 2010) ** US edition – ''The Aztecs: Rise and Fall of an Empire'', “

Abrams Discoveries Abrams may refer to: __NOTOC__ People * Abrams (surname), a list of notable people with the surname Places United States * Abrams, Wisconsin, a town * Abrams (community), Wisconsin, an unincorporated community * Abrams Mountain, Colorado * Abr ...

” series. Harry N. Abrams, 1992 ** UK edition – ''The Aztecs: Rise and Fall of an Empire'', ‘

New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institut ...

’ series. Thames & Hudson, 1992 * Co-author with Carmen Bernand, ''De l’idolâtrie : Une archéologie des sciences religieuses'', collection « Philosophie Générale ». Seuil, 1988 * ''La colonisation de l’imaginaire : Sociétés indigènes et occidentalisation dans le Mexique espagnol (XVIᵉ-XVIIIᵉ siècle)'', collection « Bibliothèque des Histoires ». Éditions Gallimard, 1988 * ''Man-Gods in the Mexican Highlands: Indian Power and Colonial Society, 1520–1800'', Stanford University Press, 1989 * Co-author with Carmen Bernand, ''Histoire du Nouveau Monde'' (2 volumes), Fayard, 1991 and 1993 * ''Painting The Conquest: The Mexican Indians and the European Renaissance'', Flammarion, 1992 * ''Images at War: Mexico from Columbus to Blade Runner (1492–2019)'', Duke University Press, 2001 * ''The Mestizo Mind: The Intellectual Dynamics of Colonization and Globalization'', Routledge, 2002 * ''The Eagle & the Dragon: Globalization and European Dreams of Conquest in China and America in the Sixteenth Century'', Polity Press, 2014 * ''A History of Mexico City'', University of California Press, 2019

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gruzinski, Serge 1949 births 20th-century French historians 21st-century French historians Historians of Latin America Academic staff of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences École Nationale des Chartes alumni Living people People from Tourcoing