Albert Sorel
Also found in: Wikipedia.
Sorel, Albert
Born Aug. 13,1842, at Honfleur, Normandy; died June 29, 1906, in Paris. French historian. Member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (1889) and the Académie Française (1894).
Sorel worked in the ministry of foreign affairs. A student of H. Taine, Sorel was greatly influenced by A. de Tocqueville. As a historiographer he sided with the bourgeois-conservative trend. His works, which deal with the history of diplomacy and international relations, were based on extensive documented material and are masterful works of prose. In his work Europe and the French Revolution (1885–1911; Russian translation of vols. 1–8, 1892–1908), Sorel gave a broad view of international relations during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. However, he did not recognize revolutionary France’s war of liberation and the predatory wars of the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire. Sorel idealized Napoleon I.
WORKS
Histoire diplomatique de la guerre franco-allemande, vols. 1–2. Paris, 1875.La Question d’Orient au XVIII siècle. Paris, 1878.