Marc Bloch, as seen by his peers. Marc Bloch, founder of the Annales School of social history and its eponymous journal. Marc Bloch, martyr to the nationalist cause. Marc Bloch, inducted into the Panthéon.

The civic, intellectual, and epistemological rehabilitation of Marc Bloch's reputation invites a deeper look at the author of Strange Defeat as a scholar, professor, and citizen. This biography shows how Bloch's intellectual approaches – the "regressive method," comparative history, the history of social structures —his vision of how history should be taught, and his political commitments as a chitizen were informed by the same questionings. It also demonstrates how his desire for cross-pollination among the various forms of interventions that historians practice proved unfruitful yet ultimately generative.