Philippe Aries and the Politics of French Cultural History

The author of Centuries of Childhood and other landmark historical works, Philippe Ariès (1914--1984) was a singular figure in French intellectual life. He was both a political reactionary and a path-breaking scholar, a sectarian royalist who supported the Vichy regime and a founder of the new cultural history -- popularly known as l'histoire des mentalités -- that developed in the decades following World War II. In this book, Patrick H. Hutton explores the relationship between Ariès's life a…