Vincent Lemire

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Vincent Lemire
Born1973 (age 51–52)
Paris, France
Scientific career
Fields History, history of the Middle East, history of Jerusalem and its Moroccan Quarter, history of the French slums from the 1930s to the 1970s, History of photography
Institutions University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée
Thesis La soif de Jérusalem  (2006)
Doctoral advisor Robert Ilbert

Vincent Lemire (born 1973) is a French historian, where he directs the French Research Center. [1]

Contents

Biography

Vincent Lemire was born in 1973.

In 1998, he obtained the Agrégation for History.

He received his doctorate in 2006 for his work La Soif de Jerusalem (lit. "The Thirst of Jerusalem"), which was published as a book in 2011.

His book Jerusalem 1900, published in 2013, was translated into several languages. Lemire works as lecturer at the University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée and director of the European Open Jerusalem project, funded by the European Research Council. [1] [2]

Lemire's research topics are the history of the Middle East, in particular Jerusalem and its Moroccan Quarter, and the history of the French slums from the 1930s to the 1970s. He also deals with the history of photography. [3] [4]

With Katell Berthelot, Julien Loiseau, and Yann Potin, Lemire wrote Jérusalem, Histoire d'une ville-monde, des origines à nos jours (translated as Jerusalem: History of a Global City in English in 2022).

In 2022, Lemire wrote his first graphic novel Histoire de Jérusalem, with illustrations by Christophe Gaultier; in the book, an old olive tree narrates the history of Jerusalem from ancient times to the 21st century. An English version titled The History of Jerusalem: An Illustrated Story of 4,000 Years was released in 2025 by Abrams ComicArts. [5]

Awards

In 2013 Lemire was awarded the Prix Augustin Thierry for his book Jérusalem 1900. La ville sainte à l'âge des possibles. [6]

In 2017, Lemire, Berthelot, Loiseau, and Potin received the Prix Pierre Lafue and the Prix Sophie Barluet for their book Jerusalem: History of a Global City. [7] [8]

Critical analysis of Vincent Lemire's work

Vincent Lemire's work on the history of Jerusalem in the Ottoman, Mandate and contemporary periods has received contrasting assessments. Several reviews have praised his methodological and archival contributions. In a review of La Soif de Jérusalem. Essai d'hydrohistoire (1840-1948), historian Frédéric Graber highlights the diversity of the archives mobilized and notes that the book maintains close attention to empirical detail while constructing a clear and readable urban history of Jerusalem from the 1840s to the 1940s. [9]

For the English edition of the graphic history The History of Jerusalem: An Illustrated Story of 4,000 Years, Brian Hillman, assistant professor of philosophy and religious studies at Towson University, writes on the Jewish Book Council website that "The History of Jerusalem combines the rigor of academic history with the accessibility of a graphic novel" and praises the way its visual language conveys a complex historical narrative. [10]

Other commentators have emphasized limits of Lemire's framing and emphases. In a review of Au pied du Mur. Vie et mort du quartier maghrébin de Jérusalem (1187-1967), Alex Stein observes that "less than 50 pages of the book are devoted to its pre-twentieth century history, with over 200 pages on the twentieth century" and suggests that some Israeli motivations are insufficiently contextualised. [11] In the French magazine Causeur, Anne-Geneviève Giraudeau argues that the comic Histoire de Jérusalem presents what she sees as a partial and selective account of four thousand years of history and that it downplays violence associated with the Arab conquest as well as the subordinate status of Jews and Christians under Muslim rule. [12]

Regarding the Hebrew translation of Jerusalem 1900 (2018), Israeli historian Yuval Ben-Bassat (University of Haifa) writes:

In practice, Jerusalem 1900 is a biased and selective book, riddled with factual and interpretative errors. The work belongs to a category of studies that tend to depict the end of the Ottoman period in Palestine, and especially in Jerusalem, in an idyllic way: a time of prosperity, of interreligious and intercommunal fraternity, of the development of a shared local Ottoman identity, and of fruitful intellectual exchange among the elites. [...] The book contains countless factual and editorial mistakes. Its accessible style for a general readership is its main asset, but it makes the volume more popular than academic. Even a non-academic audience, however, deserves a more rigorous book. The decision to translate such a poorly edited manuscript may reflect ideological rather than strictly scholarly motivations. [13]

In a 2025 article in The Forward about the English version of The History of Jerusalem, Israeli historian Motti Golani is quoted as saying that the book is "part of this book's antisemitic aroma" and concludes: "It's propaganda. It's dangerous propaganda". [14]

Publications

References

  1. 1 2 Vincent Lemire, CV, publications in crfj.org. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  2. ↑ Vincent Lemire, Open Jerusalem in openjerusalem.org. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  3. ↑ Vincent Lemire, Research area, publications in crfj.org. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  4. ↑ Vincent Lemire, CV, publications Archived 2020-08-14 at the Wayback Machine in acp.u-pem.fr. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  5. ↑ Lemire, Vincent (May 20, 2025). "The History of Jerusalem: An Illustrated Story of 4,000 Years". Abrams ComicArts.
  6. ↑ Les Rendez-vous de l’histoire, Prix Augustin Thierry, Lauréats 2009/2017 Archived 2021-01-24 at the Wayback Machine in rdv-histoire.com. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  7. ↑ le Prix Pierre Lafue in fondationpierrelafue.org. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  8. ↑ Prix Sophie Barluet in institutdiderot.fr. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  9. ↑ Graber, Frédéric (24 October 2011). "Jérusalem au fil de l'eau. À propos de : V. Lemire, La Soif de Jérusalem. Essai d'hydrohistoire (1840-1948)". La Vie des idées (in French). Retrieved 29 November 2025.
  10. ↑ Hillman, Brian (19 May 2025). "The History of Jerusalem: An Illustrated Story of 4,000 Years". Jewish Book Council. Retrieved 29 November 2025.
  11. ↑ Stein, Alex (November 2023). "Book Review: In the Shadow of the Wall". Fathom Journal. Retrieved 29 November 2025.
  12. ↑ Giraudeau, Anne-Geneviève (23 August 2024). "BD sur l' "Histoire de Jérusalem", une référence ? Non !". Causeur (in French). Retrieved 29 November 2025.
  13. ↑ Ben-Bassat, Yuval (2019). "Review of Vincent Lemire's translated book: Jerusalem 1900 [in Hebrew]". Ha-Mizrah he-Hadash (in Hebrew). 58: 155–158. Retrieved 29 November 2025.
  14. ↑ Schwartz, Roy (2 July 2025). "This graphic history of Jerusalem is a big hit. But its Jews have hooked noses". The Forward. Retrieved 29 November 2025.
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