Étienne Dennery (20 March 1903;

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

– 29 December 1979; Paris) was a French academic, public servant and diplomat. Dennery studied at the

École normale supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

from 1923 to 1926 and became '' agrégé'' in history and geography. He received an Albert Kahn grant to travel abroad and spent time in China, India and Japan studying demographics and gathering material for a book published in French in 1930 and translated into English in 1931 under the title ''Asia's Teeming Millions: and its problems for the West''. He later worked as an economic expert for the Lytton Commission on Manchuria. He then taught at the

École Libre des Sciences Politiques Sciences Po () or Sciences Po Paris, also known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies (), is a public research university located in Paris, France, that holds the status of ''grande école'' and the legal status of . The university's unde ...

, the Institute of Higher International Studies ( Panthéon-Assas University), and at

HEC Paris HEC Paris () is a business school and ''grande école'' located in Jouy-en-Josas, a southwestern outer suburb of Paris, France. It offers Bachelor, MiM, MSc in International Finance, MBA, EMBA, executive education, professional developm ...

as well as giving invited lectures throughout the Northwestern

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. In 1935, Dennery and

Louis Joxe Louis Joxe (16 September 1901 – 6 April 1991) was a French statesman, judge, and politician. He was born in Bourg-la-Reine, Hauts-de-Seine. Career Joxe, along with René Capitant, the resistance organization Combat-Algérie, the only branch of ...

co-founded the ''Centre d'études de politique étrangère'' (center for foreign policy) which Joxe described as inspired by the British

Royal Institute of International Affairs Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family or royalty Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Roya ...

. When Germany invaded France in 1940, Dennery joined

Charles de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free France, Free French Forces against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Re ...

Free French Forces __NOTOC__ The French Liberation Army ( ; AFL) was the reunified French Army that arose from the merging of the Armée d'Afrique with the prior Free French Forces (; FFL) during World War II. The military force of Free France, it participated ...

and worked for the information services. After the end of the war in 1945, Dennery joined the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

as the director for Americas affairs. He was then successively named Ambassador to Poland (1950–54),

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

(1954–61) and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

(1961–64). Returning to France, Dennery was named on 16 September 1964 ''Directeur des bibliothèques et de la lecture publique, administrateur général de la Bibliothèque nationale'' (director of libraries and public reading, administrator general of the

National Library A national library is a library established by a government as a country's preeminent repository of information. Unlike public library, public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuable, ...

), a job he held until his retirement in 1975.

Bibliography

*''Asia's teeming millions: and its problems for the West'', 1931 (1930 for the French edition) *''A French economist's visit to western colleges'', 1936

References

External links

Étienne Dennery

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lookup 1903 births 1979 deaths École Normale Supérieure alumni Ambassadors of France to Japan Ambassadors of France to Poland Ambassadors of France to Switzerland Academic staff of Sciences Po Academic staff of Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas University Academic staff of HEC Paris 20th-century French diplomats {{France-diplomat-stub