Patrick Boucheron

Patrick Boucheron (born 1965) is a French historian. He previously taught medieval history at the École normale supérieure and the University of Paris. He is a professor of history at the Collège de France. He is the author of 12 books and or the editor of 5 books. His 2017 book, Histoire mondiale de la France, became a bestseller in France, where it was dismissed by conservative critics.

Patrick Boucheron was born in 1965 in Paris.

Boucheron was educated at the Lycée Marcelin Berthelot in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés and the Lycée Henri IV in Paris. He graduated from the École normale supérieure de lettres et sciences humaines (ENS) in Saint-Cloud and earned the agrégation in history in 1988. He earned a PhD in history from the University of Paris in 1994. His thesis supervisor was Pierre Toubert.

Boucheron was an assistant professor in medieval history at his alma mater, the ENS, from 1994 to 1999. He was associate professor of history at the University of Paris from 1999 to 2012, and full professor from 2012 to 2016. He has been a professor of history at the Collège de France since 2016.

The Collège de France, where Boucheron teaches history.

Boucheron has served on the editorial board of L'Histoire since 1999. He was also a junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France from 2004 to 2009. He has been the chairman of the advisory board of the École française de Rome since 2005. He is on the editorial board of the L'Univers Historique collection of the Éditions du Seuil, a French publisher, and he is a contributor to France Culture, a French radio station. He regularly attends the Banquet du livre, an annual book festival in Lagrasse.

Boucheron is the author or co-author of 12 books and or the editor or co-editor of 5 books. His first book, Le pouvoir de bâtir : urbanisme et politique édilitaire à Milan (XIVe-XVe siècles), was his PhD thesis. Out of the many books he edited, Le mot qui tue. Une histoire des violences intellectuelles de l'Antiquité à nos jours, is about the use of words to wound others. His inaugural address before the Collège de France, Ce que peut l’histoire, was published as a book in 2016.

In 2017, Boucheron edited Histoire mondiale de la France, co-written by 122 historians. The book presents an internationalization of French history; for example, it suggests that the 1973 Chilean coup d'état is part of French history. In spite of becoming a bestseller in France, the book has garnered negative criticisms from conservative intellectuals. It was dismissed by Eric Zemmour, who dismissed it as "historically correct". François-Xavier Bellamy criticised the fact that Boucheron failed to define France within its borders and sovereign prerogative. Alain Finkielkraut was equally scathing; he deplored its failure to mention French civilization, including French literature.