Richard Cobb
| Richard Cobb | |
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| Born |
20 May 1917 Frinton-on-Sea, England |
| Died | 15 January 1996 (aged 78) Abingdon, England |
| Alma mater | Merton College, Oxford |
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Richard Charles Cobb CBE (20 May 1917 – 15 January 1996) was a British historian and essayist, and professor at the University of Oxford. He was the author of numerous influential works about the history of France, particularly the French Revolution. Cobb meticulously researched the Revolutionary era from a ground-level view sometimes described as "history from below". His works offer exceptionally fine detail culled from a variety of lesser-known sources and analysed within a broad interdisciplinary scope.
Cobb is best known for his multi-volume work The People's Armies (1961), a massive study of the composition and mentality of the Revolution's civilian armed forces. He was a prolific writer of essays, and he fashioned numerous highly regarded collections from his large trove of research on French history. Cobb also found much inspiration from his own colourful life, and he composed a multitude of autobiographical writings and personal reflections. Much of his writing went unpublished in his lifetime, and the weaving of new collections from extant material has been carried on by other scholars long after his death.
Richard Cobb was born in Frinton-on-Sea, England, during World War One, the son of Francis Hills Cobb, who worked in the Sudan Civil Service, and his wife, Dora Cobb, née Swindale. After an education at the Shrewsbury School in Shropshire, he visited France for the first time. He stayed for a year and developed a passion for the country, its people and their history. Returning to England, he matriculated at Merton College, Oxford in 1935 and was awarded a second class degree in History in 1938. During the Second World War he was an instructor to the Polish Air Force, made BBC broadcasts in French, and served in the British Army.
After his military discharge, Cobb returned to France and stayed for another nine years. During this time, Cobb honed his style of historical analysis. He worked closely with the French Marxist-school historians Albert Soboul and George Rudé, frequently sharing research at the National Archives.
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