Pierre Rosanvallon

Pierre Rosanvallon (born 1 January 1948, Blois) is a French intellectual and historian, named professor at the Collège de France in 2001. He holds there the chair in the modern and contemporary history of the political. 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. He is also director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, where he led the Raymond Aron Centre of Political Researches between 1992 and 2005. Rosanvallon was in the 1970s one of the primary theoreticians of workers' self-management in the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CDFT) trade union.

He is diplomed from the Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) management school. In 1982, he created the Fondation Saint-Simon think-tank, along with François Furet. The Fondation dissolved in December 1999. Since 2002, Rosanvallon is member of the Scientific Counsel of the French National Library, and has the same functions, since 2004, at the École Normale Supérieure of Paris.

Rosanvallon created in 2002 La République des Idées, an "intellectual workshop" which he presides. The group publishes a review and books.