Henry Rousso (born 23 November 1954) is an Egyptian-born

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

specializing in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

France.

Early life

Henry Rousso was born on 23 November 1954 in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metr ...

, Egypt to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family. Forced out of Egypt under anti-Semitic measures instituted by the

Nasser Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-r ...

regime, and stripped of Egyptian nationality, they fled to France in 1956. Rousso studied at the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud between 1974 and 1979, earning an agrégation in history in 1977. Rousso joined the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 1981. The previous year, he participated in the foundation of the Institut d'Histoire du Temps Présent, which he directed between 1994 and 2005. Rousso taught at the École normale supérieure de Cachan and the Institut d’études politiques de Paris. He has supervised PhD dissertations at Paris Nanterre University from 2001 to 2011, then at Panthon-Sorbonne University from 2011. Rousso currently serves as Director of Research at the CNRS. Rousso is an editorial board member of several

academic journals An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...

, including ''Conserveries mémorielles'', ''Vingtième Siècle'', '' History and Memory'', ''

South Central Review The ''South Central Review'' is an academic journal established in 1984 and the official publication of thSouth Central Modern Language Association It is an eclectic, interdisciplinary journal, publishing a wide range of material including litera ...

'', and ''SegleXX. Revista catalana di Stòria.'' He co-directed the collection "Contemporary European History" (

Berghahn Books Berghahn Books is a New York and Oxford-based publisher of scholarly books and academic journals in the humanities and social sciences, with a special focus on social & cultural anthropology, European history, politics, and film & media s ...

: Oxford/New York), along with

Konrad Jarausch Konrad H. Jarausch (born 14 August 1941 in Magdeburg, Germany) is a German-American historian and the Lurcy Professor of European Civilization at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The focus of his work has been German history, with h ...

.'''' On February 22, 2017, Rousso was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agentsErin McCann "French Historian Says He Was Threatened with Deportation at Houston Airport
''The New York Times'', February 27, 2017. for 10 hours on arrival at

George Bush Intercontinental Airport George Bush Intercontinental Airport is an international airport in Houston, Texas, United States, serving the Greater Houston metropolitan area. Located about north of Downtown Houston between Interstate 45 and Interstate 69/U.S. Highway 5 ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...

and nearly deported. He had come to give a talk at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M Unive ...

and was detained because he was entering the country on a tourist visa and was being paid a stipend for the talk. The Customs and Border Protection agent was unaware that such stipends are allowed for scholars.

Works

Rousso's notable work includes a seminal book on

Vichy France Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its t ...

entitled ''The Vichy Syndrome'' (1987) where he coined a phrase commonly used to describe the era, ''un passé qui ne passe pas'' ("a past that doesn't pass".

References

Living people 1954 births Egyptian emigrants to France Egyptian Jews University of Paris alumni ENS Fontenay-Saint-Cloud-Lyon alumni Historians of Vichy France Knights of the Ordre national du Mérite French male writers 20th-century French historians 21st-century French historians French people of Egyptian-Jewish descent {{France-historian-stub