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Pierre Vidal-NaquetFrench historian and publicist.
Date of Birth: 23.07.1930
Country:  France |
Content:
Early Life and Education
Pierre Vidal-Naquet was born into a Jewish family in Paris, France. His father, Lucien Vidal-Naquet, was a lawyer who defended Alfred Dreyfus in the Dreyfus Affair. After the occupation of France during World War II, both of Vidal-Naquet's parents joined the Resistance but were arrested in 1944 and sent to Auschwitz, where they perished.
Academic Career
After graduating from the Collège Carnot in Paris, Vidal-Naquet studied history at the universities of Caen and Lille. Beginning with his first book on Cleisthenes of Athens (1964), his scholarship primarily focused on the history of Ancient Greece. He gained particular acclaim for a three-volume series co-authored with Jean-Pierre Vernant: "From Myth to Reason" (1990), "Space and Time" (1990), and "Rites of Passage and Transgression" (1992).
Some of Vidal-Naquet's works lie at the intersection of history and philology, such as "The World of Homer" (2002) and "The Broken Mirror: Athenian Tragedy and Politics" (2002). His final book, "Atlantis: A Short History of a Platonic Myth" (2005), became a popular success.
Political Activism
Vidal-Naquet was a supporter of socialism and Marxism in their humanist forms. He opposed Stalinism and became a member of the United Socialist Party of France. During the Algerian War of Independence, he co-authored the Manifesto of the 121, calling for civil disobedience against the war. He also wrote four books on the war, one of which was titled "The Crimes of the French Army in Algeria" (1975).
Vidal-Naquet co-founded the Group for Information on Prisons in 1971. He advocated for a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian issue, serving as one of the initiators of the "Another Voice of Jews" open letter (2003).
Holocaust Denial and Memory
Vidal-Naquet was an outspoken critic of Holocaust denial and a staunch opponent of Noam Chomsky regarding the Faurisson Affair. His writings on this subject were collected in the book "The Assassins of Memory" (1995).
