Augustin Cochin (22 December 1876 – 8 July 1916) was a French historian of the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
. Much of his work was posthumously published in an incomplete state after he was killed in action in World War I.
Career overview
Born in Paris, Cochin was the son of
Denys Cochin, a Parisian deputy in the
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...
with ties to the
Vatican
Vatican may refer to:
Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum
The Holy See
* The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...
, and the grandson of
Augustin Cochin, a French politician and writer. His
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
upbringing helped him to remain detached from the French Revolution and study it historically in a new light.
Cochin studied the Revolution from a
sociological
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
perspective, cultivated from his interest in the work of
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...
, and he sought to look at the revolution from a social perspective.
François Furet
François Furet (; 27 March 1927 – 12 July 1997) was a French historian and president of the Saint-Simon Foundation, best known for his books on the French Revolution. From 1985 to 1997, Furet was a professor of French history at the University ...
believed that Cochin's work worked towards an analysis of two objectives: “a sociology of the production and role of democratic ideology, and a sociology of political manipulation and machines.”
Cochin was drafted into service in World War I in 1914, and he was wounded four times in service before being killed on 8 July 1916 at
Maricourt,
Somme.
[Furet (1981), p. 191.]
His sometime collaborator,
Charles Charpentier, worked with Cochin's family towards posthumous publication of his works.
See also
*
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (, 21 April 1828 – 5 March 1893) was a French historian, critic and philosopher. He was the chief theoretical influence on French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practition ...
*
Jacques Godechot
Jacques Léon Godechot (3 January 1907 – 24 August 1989) was a French historian of the French revolution, and a pioneer of Atlantic history.
As a frequent and varied contributor to the ''Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française'', he act ...
*
Pierre Gaxotte
Major works
* ''La Crise de l’Histoire Révolutionnaire: Taine et M. Aulard,'' Honoré Champion, 1909.
* ''Le Capitaine Augustin Cochin. Quelques Lettres de Guerre, (Préface de Paul Bourget),''
Bloud & Gay, 1917.
* ''Les Sociétés de Pensée et la Démocratie: Études d’Histoire Révolutionnaire,'' Plon-Nourrit et Cie., 1921.
* ''La Révolution et la Libre Pensée: la Socialisation de la Pensée (1759-1789); la Socialisation de la Personne (1789-1792); la Socialisation des Biens (1793-1794),'' Plon, 1924.
* ''Les Sociétés de Pensée et la Révolution en Bretagne (1788-1789),'' Champion, 1925.
* ''Les Actes du Gouvernement Révolutionnaire (23 août 1793 – 27 juillet 1794),'' 3 Vol., A. Picard et Fils, 1920-1935.
* ''Abstraction Révolutionnaire et Réalisme Catholique,'' Desclée, de Brouwer & Cie., 1936.
* ''L'Esprit du Jacobinisme: une Interprétation Sociologique de la Révolution Française,'' Presses Universitaires de France, 1979.
Works in English translation
* "The Subversive Influence of the ''Philosophes'' and the ''Sociétés de Pensée''." In: William F. Church (ed.), ''The Influence of the Enlightenment on the French Revolution''. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1964, pp. 61–67.
* ''Organizing the Revolution: Selections from Augustin Cochin,'' Chronicles Press/The Rockford Institute, 2007.
References
Further reading
* Bénéton, Philippe (1996). "The Great Misunderstanding." In: ''The Legacy of the French Revolution'', Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 175–185.
* Halévi, Ran (1986). "L'Idée et l'Événement: Sur les Origines Intellectuelles de la Révolution Française," ''Le Débat'', No. 38, pp. 145–163.
* Martin, Gaston (1926). ''Augustin Cochin et la Révolution.'' Toulouse: Éditions du Bon Plaisir.
* Meaux, Antoine de (1928). ''Augustin Cochin et la Genèse de la Révolution.'' Paris: Plon.
*
Porset, Charles (1990)
"Les Francs-maçons et la Révolution (autour de la "Machine" de Cochin),"''Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française'', No. 279, pp. 14–31.
* Schrader, Fred E. (1989)
"Réalisme Catholique et Sociologie de la Révolution: le Projet Historiographique d'Augustin Cochin (1909-1916),"''Cahiers Georges Sorel'', Vol. VII, No. 7, pp. 163–206.
* Schrader, Fred E. (1992). ''Augustin Cochin et la République Française.'' Paris: Le Seuil.
* Sonenscher, Michael (1990). "The Cheese and the Rats: Augustin Cochin and the Bicentenary of the French Revolution," ''Economy and Society'', Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 266–274.
* Winnie, L. H. (1988). ''Aegis of the Bourgeoisie: the Cochins of Paris, 1750-1922''. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Michigan.
External links
*
Works by Augustin Cochin at
Hathi Trust
HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...
La Révolution et la Libre-Pensée(pdf).
Les Sociétés de Pensée et la Démocratie Moderne(pdf).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cochin, Augustin
École Nationale des Chartes alumni
20th-century French historians
Historians of the French Revolution
French military personnel killed in World War I
1876 births
1916 deaths
Anti-Masonry
French male non-fiction writers