Augustin Cochin was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 historian of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

. Much of his work was posthumously published in an incomplete state after he was killed in action in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

Born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, Cochin was the son of Denys Cochin

Denys Cochin

Baron Denys Marie Pierre Augustin Cochin was a French writer and Catholic right-wing politician.Denys Cochin was the son of the baron Augustin Cochin, also a politician and writer...

, a Parisian deputy in the National Assembly with ties to the Vatican

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

, and the grandson of Augustin Cochin, a French politician and writer. His Catholic

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 upbringing helped him to remain detached from the French Revolution and study it historically in a new light.

Cochin studied the Revolution from a sociological perspective, cultivated from his interest in the work of Émile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim

David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...

, and he sought to look at the revolution from a social perspective. François Furet

François Furet

-Biography:Born in Paris on 27 March 1927, into a wealthy family, François Furet was a brilliant student who graduated from the Sorbonne with the highest honors and soon decided on a life of research, teaching and writing. He received his education at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and at the faculty...

 believed that Cochin’s work worked towards an analysis of two objectives: “a sociology of the production and role of democratic ideology, and a sociology of political manipulation and machines.” Cochin’s work deals with the revolution itself from a conceptual basis.

Cochin was drafted into service in World War I in 1914, and he was wounded four times in service before being killed on 8 July 1916 at Maricourt

Maricourt

Maricourt is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France. It is twinned with Brundall, Norfolk, England.-Geography:Maricourt is situated on the D938 road, some southeast of Amiens.-Population:-The Commonwealth Cemetery:...

, Somme

Somme

Somme is a department of France, located in the north of the country and named after the Somme river. It is part of the Picardy region of France....

.

His sometime collaborator, Charles Charpentier, worked with Cochin’s family towards posthumous publication of his works.

Major works

• La Crise de l’histoire révolutionnaire: Taine et M. Aulard (1909)
• Actes du gouvernement révolutionnaire (23 août 1793 – 27 juillet 1794) (1920)
• Les Sociétés de pensée et la démocratie: Études d’histoire révolutionnaire (1921)
• Les Sociétés de pensée et la Révolution en Bretagne (1788-1789) (1925)