The Life of an Unknown: The Rediscovered World of a Clog Maker in Nineteenth-Century France

Alain Corbin

July, 2001
Cloth, 272 pages, 2 illus
ISBN: 978-0-231-11840-8
$39.50 / £23.00

"Corbin has achieved a scholarly triumph." — Publishers Weekly

"An outstanding example of 'speculative history'from one of France’s greatest social and cultural historians. . . . Masterfully translated by Arthur Goldhammer, this work will be particularly fascinating for all those who are willing to accept its speculative aspects and who appreciate the possibilities of imaginative history written with honesty and grace." — Choice

"A splendid job...put[s] flesh on the bones of a small society and a corner of France that stand out more clearly thanks to his work." — Eugen Weber, American Historical Review

"Corbin puts the pieces of this lifetime together in a way that is rich in insight." — Theresa M. McBride, The Historian

"This work is a product of a renowned historian's quest to study ordinary people instead of elites . . . Arguing that the current social history of ordinary people is based on the traces left by very unusual people who are wrongly taken to be spokesmen for the rest, Corbin seeks to rectify this by studying someone so obscure, unimportant, and anonymous as to be totally unremembered." — Iorweth Prothero, Labour/Le Travail

Related Subjects

• European History

Series

• European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism

About the Author

Alain Corbin is a professor at University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne. He is the leading figure among French historians who have concentrated on “ordinary people.” Known for his originality and iconoclastic work, Corbin is the author of The Foul and the Fragrant, The Lure of the Sea, and, most recently, Village Bells: The Culture of the Senses in Nineteenth-Century French Countryside. He lives in Paris, France.

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