‘One of Our Greatest Living Historians’

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2020

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Natalie Zemon Davis is a legend. One of the most influential and versatile contemporary historians. A pathbreaking scholar of early modern European social and cultural history, she has also explored the Mediterranean world as seen by Leo Africanus and the culture of slavery in Suriname.

She was born on 8 November 1928 and she is still working. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of History and Anthropology and Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto in Canada. Her work originally focused on France, but has since broadened to include other parts of Europe, North America, and the Caribbean. For example, Trickster Travels (2006) views Italy, Spain, Morocco and other parts of North Africa and West Africa through the lens of Leo Africanus's pioneering geography. It has appeared in four translations, with three more on the way.

She is a hero to many historians and academics, as "one of the greatest living historians", constantly asking new questions and taking on new challenges, the second female president of the American Historical Association (the first, Nellie Neilson, was in 1943) and someone who "has not lost the integrity and commitment to radical thought which marked her early career"

As a Canadian and a lover of history- this was a very special podcast for me.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone, Dan Snow here. I'm embarking on an epic road trip of England and I'm taking the podcast with me.
0:06.5	We're covering over 500 miles and 1 million years of English history,
0:11.5	stopping at the places that tell the incredible story of this country.
0:18.0	From the south coast where the Romans arrived on Britain's rugged shores
0:23.5	to the nuclear defence bunkers of the northeast.
0:27.5	We're going to hear about the Monks, the rulers, bloody battles, murder and mayhem.
0:32.5	Dan Snow's history is the best place to go close to history.
0:36.0	My story of England's series starts on Monday 22 May.
0:48.0	Hello everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's history. We're going to live in legend on the podcast, say.
0:51.5	Not every day I can say that. A living legend.
0:54.5	Natalie Zem and Davis was born in the 1920s. She is an adjunct professor of history and anthropology,
1:02.5	the University of Toronto. A professor of medieval studies there as well.
1:07.0	Toronto is my second hometown, so my mum is from I'm half Canadian.
1:11.5	So I've got a natural, natural inclination to celebrate anything from Toronto.
1:16.5	But that inclination is not required when it comes to Natalie Zem and Davis.
1:20.5	Because she is a living legend. She's been described as one of the greatest living historians.
1:25.0	She was the second ever female president of the American Historical Association.
1:29.0	And she is a brilliant communicator of history, brilliant writer and a brilliant scholar.
1:33.5	I had her on the podcast, deep into her 90s, talked about why she's still doing history, why she loves history.
1:38.5	What's the point of history? What can we learn from it?
1:41.5	I asked her in all those decades of doing history, how she changed anyone's mind about anything, in any helpful way.
1:47.5	She was brilliant.
	...

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