Michel Winock is a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, specializing in the French Republic, intellectual movements, anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

, nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

 and the far right

Far right

Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...

 movements of France. He is a professeur des universités in contemporary history

Contemporary history

Contemporary history describes the period timeframe that is without any intervening time closely connected to the present and is a certain perspective of modern history. The term "contemporary history" has been in use at least by the early 19th century. In the widest context of this use,...

 at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris

Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris

The Institut d'études politiques de Paris , simply referred to as Sciences Po , is a public research and higher education institution in Paris, France, specialised in the social sciences. It has the status of grand établissement, which allows its admissions process to be highly selective...

 (Sciences-Po) and member of L'Histoire

L'Histoire

L'Histoire is a monthly mainstream French magazine dedicated to historical studies, recognized by peers as the most important historical popular magazine ....

magazine's editing board. Winock has also worked as a reporter for Le Monde

Le Monde

Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...

.

Winock is the author of Siècle des intellectuels (Century of Intellectuals, 1997), for which he received the Prix Médicis

Prix Médicis

The Prix Médicis is a French literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by Gala Barbisan and Jean-Pierre Giraudoux. It is awarded to an author whose "fame does not yet match his talent."...

 in 1997 in the essay category. He also wrote Voix de la liberté (Voice of Liberty, 2001), acknowledged by the Académie française

Académie française

L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

, and directed the Dictionnaire des intellectuels français with Jacques Juillard. He won the 2010 Prix Goncourt de la Biographie for Madame de Stael.

Biography

Winock became doctor of letters achieving his agrégation d'histoire in 1961. He started his career in secondary school teaching at the lycée in Montpellier

Montpellier

-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....

, then at the Lycée Hoche

Lycée Hoche

The Lycée Hoche is a public secondary school located in Versailles, not very far away from the famous Palace of Versailles. Formerly, it had been a nunnery founded by French queen Maria Leszczyńska. However, after the French Revolution, it became a school in 1803...

 in Versailles

Versailles

Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...

 and the lycée Lakanal

Lycée Lakanal

Lycée Lakanal is a secondary public school in Sceaux, France. It was named after Joseph Lakanal, a French politician, and an original member of the Institut de France. The school also offers a middle school and highly ranked "classes préparatoires" undergraduate training...

 in Sceaux. The creation of the University of Vincennes following the Faure reform of 1968 opened the doors of higher education

Higher education

Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...

 to him. Winock also led a career as an editor. He was member of the Esprit magazine

Esprit (magazine)

Esprit is a French literary magazine. Founded in October 1932 by Emmanuel Mounier, it was the principal review of personalist intellectuals of the time. From 1957 to 1976, it was directed by Jean-Marie Domenach. Paul Thibaud directed it from 1977 to 1989. The philosopher Paul Ricoeur often...

from 1964, and became an adviser, then literary director to Éditions du Seuil. In 1978, a year after leaving Esprit, he founded L'Histoire magazine with the aim of making the best historical research accessible to the public. Author of about 40 works, Winock is today one of the most prolific and esteemed French historians.

Winock was one of the initiators of the Liberté pour l'histoire (freedom for history) petition.