Jules Michelet

Born in Paris on 21 August 1798, Michelet built his career on a conviction borrowed from Giambattista Vico: that history belonged to ordinary people, not just kings and generals. His multi-volume Histoire de France traced the nation from its earliest origins to the Revolution, weaving customs and common life into the chronicle. Along the way he systematically applied the French word "Renaissance" to an entire era - taking a term the Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari had used in 1550 for a revival in painting and expanding it into shorthand for post-medieval humanism and intellectual transformation across Europe. His The History of the French Revolution became what François Furet called "the cornerstone of revolutionary historiography" and "a literary monument." He died on 9 February 1874, having turned the past into a story nations could read about themselves.