Henry Laurens (born 1954,Neuilly-sur-Seine) is a French historian and author of several histories and studies about the Arab-Muslim world. He is Professor and Chair of History of the ContemporaryArab world at theCollège de France, Paris.[1]
Laurens earned his degree of Arab civilization from the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO) in Paris. From 1981 to 1983, he studied and taught abroad inDamascus andCairo. He was awarded his doctorate, with high distinction, in 1989 at theSorbonne–Paris IV, with a thesis onThe French Revolution and Islam : History and Meanings of the Egyptian Expedition, 1798-1801.[2]
From 1981 to 1982, Henry Laurens was Scholarship student at the French Institute of Arab Studies inDamascus and from 1982 to 1983, he was French lecturer atCairo University. From 1983 to 1990, he was assistant professor in contemporary history at theParis-Sorbonne University. Professor ofLate modern period atInstitut national des langues et civilisations orientales from 1991 to 2001, Henry Laurens is also the director of theMediterranean Studies doctoral training there from 1992 to 1995 and the director of theNorth Africa Middle East department from 1992 to 1994. He has been a professor at the Collège de France since 2003.[3]
Laurens specializes in several related areas of research: European-Ottoman contacts in the 19th century, Franco-Arab relations, Middle-Eastern politics, European thought in the 18th and 19th centuries and the history of modern Palestine.[5] His five-volume workLa Question de Palestine was published in 1999–2015 and covers 19th- and 20th-centuryPalestinian history.[6]
