Title: Henri Pirenne - Wikipedia
Headings: Henri Pirenne
Henri Pirenne
Contents
Biography
Early years
Captivity
Theses and works
On the formation of European towns
Islam
Belgian history
Medieval Cities
A History of Europe
Bibliography
See also
Notes
Sources
External links

Content: At Jena, he began his history of medieval Europe, starting with the fall of Rome. He wrote completely from memory. Rather than a blow-by-blow chronology of wars, dynasties and incidents, A History of Europe presents a big-picture approach to social, political and mercantile trends. It is remarkable not only for its historical insight, but also its objectivity, especially considering the conditions under which it was written. After the war, he reflected the widespread disillusionment in Belgium with German culture, while taking a nuanced position which allowed him to criticize German nationalism without excluding German works from the scholarly canon. He attacked race theory and Völkisch nationalism as the underlying causes of German wartime excesses. His earlier belief in the inevitable progress of humanity collapsed, so he began to accept chance or the fortuitous in history and came to acknowledge the significance of single great individuals at certain points in history. At the conclusion of the war, Henri Pirenne stopped his work on A History of Europe in the middle of the 16th century. He returned home and took up his life. He died at Uccle, Brussels in 1935.