Davis, Natalie Zemon

Davis, Natalie (Ann) Zemon (1928–  ) historian; born in Detroit, Mich. Educated at Smith and Radcliffe Colleges and the University of Michigan (Ph.D. 1959), she taught at Brown University (1959–63), the University of Toronto (1963–71), the University of California: Berkeley (1971–78), and Princeton (1978). A foremost practitioner of the "new social history," she engaged in almost anthropological research into the lives of the artisans, laborers, and peasants of 16th-century France, resulting in such works as The Return of Martin Guerre (1983) (which was used as the basis for French and American movies).