20th-century French historians

François Roland Truffaut (UK: TROO-foh, TRUU-, US: troo-FOH; French: [fʁɑ̃swa ʁɔlɑ̃ tʁyfo]; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French filmmaker, actor, and critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. With a career of more than 25 years, he is an icon of the French film industry.
Truffaut's film The 400 Blows (1959) is a defining film of the French New Wave movement, and has four sequels: Antoine et Colette (1962), Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970), and Love on the Run (1979). Truffaut's 1973 film Day for Night earned him critical acclaim and several awards, including the BAFTA Award for Best Film and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His other notable films include Shoot the Piano Player (1960), Jules and Jim (1962), The Soft Skin (1964), The Wild Child (1970), Two English Girls (1971), The Last Metro (1980), and The Woman Next Door (1981). He played one of the main roles in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
Truffaut wrote the book Hitchcock/Truffaut (1966), based on his interviews with film director Alfred Hitchcock during the 1960s.

Paul Naudon (16 April 1915 – 2001), was a Doctor of Law and a 20th-century French historian, author of several books on freemasonry.

Nicole Bacharan (born 25 January 1955) is a French historian and political scientist specializing in American society and French-American relations. She is a researcher with the National Foundation for Political Science (Sciences Po) and was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California from 2013 to 2014.
Famous for her books and her TV appearances and radio broadcasts in France and the United States, she is the author of numerous essays including several bestsellers, "Faut-il avoir peur de l’Amérique ?" (Should We Be Afraid of America?) and "Américains-Arabes, l’affrontement" (Americans-Arabs, The Confrontation). In collaboration with Dominique Simonnet, she also writes novels in the Némo series.
On September 11, 2001, live from the France 2 evening news show hosted by David Pujadas, she left a mark on French television-watchers when she said "Tonight, we are all Americans," a phrase repeated the following day in the newspaper Le Monde.

Roland Émile Mousnier (French: [munje]; Paris, September 7, 1907– February 8, 1993, Paris) was a French historian of the early modern period in France and of the comparative studies of different civilizations.

Frantz Funck-Brentano (15 June 1862 – 13 June 1947) was a French historian and librarian. He was born in the castle of Munsbach (Luxembourg) and died at Montfermeil. He was a son of Théophile Funck-Brentano.

Pierre Rosanvallon (born 1 January 1948) is a French historian and sociologist. He was named a professor at the Collège de France in 2001, holding the chair in modern and contemporary political history.
His works are dedicated to the history of democracy, French political history, the role of the state and the question of social justice in contemporary societies.

Daniel Roche (26 July 1935 – 19 February 2023) was a French social and cultural historian, widely recognized as one of the foremost experts of his generation on the cultural history of France during the later years of the Ancien Régime. Roche was elected an International member of the American Philosophical Society in 2009.

Pierre Vilar (3 May 1906, Frontignan – 7 August 2003, Saint-Palais) was a French historian specialized in the history of Catalonia and Hispanism. He is considered one of the most authoritative 20th-century historians for the history of Spain, for both the Ancien Régime and modern history. He and Jaume Vicens Vives were among the most influential historians of Catalonia.
His short 1947 essay Histoire de l'Espagne (History of Spain), despite being banned under Francoism, has a great success, and after the death of the Francisco Franco was frequently used in progressive circles and for teaching. In 2009, it reached its 22nd edition.

Jacques Guillermaz (16 January 1911 – 4 February 1998) was a French diplomat, military officer, and scholar of modern Chinese history. He served as military attaché in China from 1937 to 1943, then returned to fight for the liberation of France in 1943, served once more in China from 1945 to 1951, and went on to advise the French government on policy toward Asia. In 1958 he founded the Center for Research and Documentation on Modern and Contemporary China and wrote widely on modern Chinese affairs. He is particularly known for his studies of Chinese Communist Party history.His honors include reaching the rank of General in the French Army and receiving the Académie française Prix Albéric Rocheron in 1969 for Histoire du parti communiste chinois and again in 1973 for his book, Le parti communiste chinois au pouvoir.

Louis Robert (15 February 1904 in Laurière – 31 May 1985 in Paris) was a professor of Greek history and Epigraphy at the Collège de France, and author of many volumes and articles on Greek epigraphy (from the archaic period to Late Antiquity), numismatics, and historical geography. He was an international authority on the history, geography, toponymy and archaeology of ancient Asia Minor.