Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po

Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po
Name	Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po
Native name	Centre d'histoire
Established	1950s
Location	Paris
Type	research institute
Parent institution	Sciences Po

Contents

Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po is a research center affiliated with Sciences Po in Paris, specializing in modern and contemporary Francen and international history from the late 18th century to the present. The Center collaborates with scholars from institutions such as Collège de France, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, CNRS, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and international partners including University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Oxford, and Yale University. It hosts programs that intersect studies of figures like Charles de Gaulle, François Mitterrand, Napoleon III, and events such as the French Revolution, the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune, the First World War, and the Second World War.

History

The Center traces roots to post-World War II efforts at Sciences Po to professionalize historical research alongside institutions such as Institut d'histoire du Temps Présent and initiatives connected to the aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles and the political debates of the Fourth Republic. Early collaborations involved scholars who studied archives related to the Dreyfus Affair, the Belle Époque, and the careers of politicians like Léon Blum and Georges Clemenceau. During the Cold War era the Center engaged comparative projects involving the Soviet Union, the United States, the Marshall Plan, and decolonization cases including Algerian War and Indochina War. In the 1980s and 1990s it expanded partnerships with museums and archives such as the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Service historique de la Défense, and the Archives nationales.

The Center's mission emphasizes archival research, critical editions, and public dissemination through collaborations with entities like the Musée Carnavalet, the Musée de l'Armée, and the Institut du Monde Arabe. It promotes comparative studies on topics ranging from diplomacy in the Congress of Vienna era to comparative welfare-state histories involving United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden. It fosters research on political trajectories of actors including Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alexandre Millerand, Pierre Mendès France, and on transnational movements such as Pan-Africanism, European integration, and the Non-Aligned Movement. The Center organizes symposia with partners like the European University Institute, the Humboldt University of Berlin, and the Max Planck Society.

Holdings include personal papers, diplomatic correspondence, and organizational records related to figures and institutions such as Émile Zola, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Jean Jaurès, Aristide Briand, Raymond Poincaré, and parties like the French Socialist Party, Rassemblement National, and historical movements including Anarchism, Communism, and Gaullism. The archive complements collections from the Comédie-Française, the Institut Pasteur, and colonial records tied to French West Africa and French Indochina. It preserves dossiers on international episodes such as the Suez Crisis, the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Yalta Conference, and holds audiovisual materials referencing personalities like Édith Piaf, Maurice Chevalier, André Malraux, and Simone Weil.

Research covers political biography, diplomatic history, social movements, and cultural history, producing monographs, edited volumes, and working papers in collaboration with presses like Presses universitaires de France, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Routledge. Projects include editorial series on correspondences of figures such as Napoléon Bonaparte, Victor Schoelcher, and Thiers, comparative studies on postwar reconstruction involving George Marshall, Konrad Adenauer, and Winston Churchill, and thematic dossiers on topics like decolonization in Algeria and integration processes tied to the Treaty of Rome. The Center publishes journals and series with contributions from scholars at Columbia University, Stanford University, The London School of Economics and Political Science, and Johns Hopkins University.

Curated exhibitions draw on items connected to events such as the Dreyfus Affair, the Paris Commune, the May 1968 protests, and celebrations of treaties like the Treaty of Paris (1947). The Center collaborates on exhibitions with institutions including the Musée d'Orsay, the Centre Pompidou, and the Fondation Jean Jaurès, and organizes public lectures featuring historians and public intellectuals such as Pierre Nora, Jacques Le Goff, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Tony Judt, and Mary Beard. Its programming includes conferences linked to anniversaries of the Armistice of 11 November 1918, the Storming of the Bastille, and milestones in European integration like the Maastricht Treaty.

It provides doctoral supervision and postdoctoral fellowships alongside doctoral schools attached to Université PSL, offering curricula that engage archival training with partners like INIST-CNRS, École Nationale des Chartes, and international exchanges with Sciences Po Paris campuses and research stays at Maison Française d'Oxford. Seminars address methodological debates informed by works such as those by Fernand Braudel, Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre, Michel Foucault, and Edward Said, and train students in archival research related to collections at the Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer and diplomatic holdings at the Quai d'Orsay.

Administratively housed within Sciences Po, the Center interacts with governance bodies including the Board of Trustees, academic councils, and funding sources such as the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, the European Research Council, and private foundations like the Fondation de France and Fondation Bettencourt Schueller. Its leadership has included prominent historians associated with institutions like the Collège de France and the École Pratique des Hautes Études, and its advisory committees draw members from universities including University of California, Berkeley, McGill University, Australian National University, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Category:Research institutes in France Category:Sciences Po