Henry Laurens (born 1954, Neuilly-sur-Seine) is a French historian and author of several histories and studies about the Arab-Muslim world. He is Professor and Chair of History of the Contemporary Arab world at the Collège de France, Paris.
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Biography
Laurens earned his degree of Arab civilization from the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO) in Paris. From 1981 to 1983, he studied and taught abroad in Damascus and Cairo. He was awarded his doctorate, with high distinction, in 1989 at the Sorbonne–Paris IV, with a thesis on The French Revolution and Islam : History and Meanings of the Egyptian Expedition, 1798-1801.
From 1981 to 1982, Henry Laurens was Scholarship student at the French Institute of Arab Studies in Damascus and from 1982 to 1983, he was French lecturer at Cairo University. From 1983 to 1990, he was assistant professor in contemporary history at the Paris-Sorbonne University. Professor of Late modern period at Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales from 1991 to 2001, Henry Laurens is also the director of the Mediterranean Studies doctoral training there from 1992 to 1995 and the director of the North Africa Middle East department from 1992 to 1994. He has been a professor at the Collège de France since 2003.
A member of the French National Centre for Scientific Research since 1991, of the Scientific Commission for Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs since 2011 and of the board of directors of the Sciences Po since 2016, he is also on the editorial board of the journal Maghreb-Machrek.
Laurens specializes in several related areas of research: European-Ottoman contacts in the 19th century, Franco-Arab relations, Middle-Eastern politics, European thought in the 18th and 19th centuries and the history of modern Palestine. His five-volume work La Question de Palestine was published in 1999–2015 and covers 19th- and 20th-century Palestinian history.
Honours and awards
Honours
2011 : Knight of the Legion of Honour (France)
2024 : Officier of the National Order of Merit (France)
Awards
2004 : Prize Joseph-du-Teil of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques
2016 : Grand prix Gobert of the Académie Française
2017 : Prize Auguste-Pavie of the Académie des sciences d'outre-mer
2019 : Phoenix Prize for Literature (Lebanon)
2021 : Mahmoud Darwich Prize (Palestine)
Acknowledgement
Member of the Académie des sciences d'outre-mer
Member of the high scientific council of the Institut du Monde Arabe
Foreign Associate of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco
Main publications
Aux sources de l'orientalisme : la Bibliothèque orientale de Barthélemi d'Herbelot, Paris : Maisonneuve et Larose, 1978.
Les Origines intellectuelles de l'expédition d'Égypte : l'orientalisme islamisant en France (1698-1798), Istanbul-Paris : Isis, 1987.
Kléber en Égypte : Kléber et Bonaparte, Cairo : Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 1988.
Le Royaume impossible : la France et la genèse du monde arabe, Paris : Armand Colin, 1990.
Le Grand Jeu : Orient arabe et rivalités internationales, Paris : Armand Colin, 1991.
Lawrence en Arabie, Paris : Découvertes Gallimard, 1992.
L'Orient arabe : arabisme et islamisme de 1798 à 1945, Paris : Armand Colin, 1993.
Kléber en Égypte : Kléber commandant en chef, Cairo : Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 1995.
L'expédition d'Égypte (1798-1801), Paris : Seuil, 1997.
Campagnes d'Égypte et de Syrie de Napoléon Bonaparte [critical edition], Paris : Imprimerie nationale, 1998.
Le Retour des exilés, la lutte pour la Palestine de 1869 à 1997, Paris : Robert Laffont, 1998.
Paix et Guerre au Moyen-Orient, l'Orient arabe et le monde de 1945 à nos jours, Paris : Armand Colin, 1999.
La Question de Palestine, Paris : Fayard, 1999–2015 (5 volumes).
