Jean-Jacques Becker

Jean-Jacques Becker (14 May 1928 – 10 July 2023) was a French historian. A specialist of contemporary history, he was the brother of historian Annie Kriegel and father to World War I specialist Annette Becker.
Biography
Jean-Jacques Becker was born into a family descended from the Jewish community of Alsace-Lorraine, located in Paris. In July 1942, he entered the South zone with his parents who settled in Grenoble (Isère). He continued his studies at the Lycée Champollion earning his Baccalauréat. Following the popularity of his family to communism, he became a member of the Communist Party from 1947 to 1960. Because of his membership in the Communist Party, he did not participate in the war in Algeria. Having left the Communist Party, he continued to engage in trade unions as a member of the National Union of Secondary Education (SNES), of which he was secretary of the section of the school of Auxerre, then that of Arago school. He was actively involved in the strikes of May–June 1968.
After teaching in secondary education (Peronne, Auxerre, Arago - Paris-) until 1968, he was a lecturer at the University of Paris-X Nanterre until 1977, a university professor in Clermont-Ferrand 1977 to 1985 (and Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1982 to 1985) and Paris-X Nanterre from 1985 to 1994 (and vice-president of the University from 1986 to 1989). He chaired the jury of the aggregation of History in 1990, 1991 and 1992. He argued in 1976 his doctoral thesis on "French public opinion and the beginning of the War of 1914" prepared under the direction of Pierre Renouvin. He dedicated his work to two major historical areas, World War I and the political history of France in the 20th century, particularly the labor movement and communism. He was also Honorary President of the International Research Center of the Museum of the Great War in Peronne, and winner of JF Mege Academy of Science, Literature and Arts Clermont-Ferrand. He succeeded Léo Hamon as vice-president of the Society for the Study jaurésiennes.
Becker died on 10 July 2023, at the age of 95.
Publications
On War
Dictionary of the Great War, Brussels, André Versaille editor, 2008
Year 14, Paris, Armand Colin, 2005
Encyclopedia of the Great War, co-directed with Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Paris, Bayard, 2004
The First World War, Belin, Paris, [1996] 2003,
The Great War, Paris, PUF, 2004
The Treaty of Versailles, Paris, PUF, 2002
Clemenceau Thirty Questions, Paris, Editions Gesture, 2001
Clemenceau, the Intractable, Paris, Liana Levi, 1998
The Great War in Europe, Paris, Belin sup. Histoire. 1996, reissued as The War moindiale, 2003
France, the Nation, the War (1850-1920), Paris Sedes, 1995 (in collaboration with Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau)
Cultures and Wars, 1914-1918, Paris, Armand Colin, 1994 (with Jay M. Winter, Gerd Krumeich, Annette Becker and Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau)
European Societies and the War of 1914-1918, Paris X-Nanterre, 1990 (co-directed with Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau)
France in War. The Transformation, Brussels, Complexe, 1988
The French in the Great War, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1980
1914, How the French Entered the War, Press the National Foundation for Political Science, Paris, 1977
The B Book, Governments and Anti-militarism Before the War of 1914, Paris, Klincksieck, 1973
1914, the War and the French Labor Movement, with Annie Kriegel, Armand Colin, Paris, 1964
On other topics
History of the Left in France, co-edited with Gilles Candar, La Découverte, Paris, 2004
France from 1914 to 1940, Paris, PUF, 2005
Political History of France Since 1945, 10th edition, Armand Colin, Paris, 2003
New History of Contemporary France, Volume 19, Alternations and Crises, 1974-1995 (in collaboration with Pascal Ory). Paris, Seuil, Points 1998, edition 1974-2000, 2002
New History of Contemporary France, Volume 12, Wins and Frustrations, 1914-1929, with Serge Berstein, Paris, Seuil, Points, 1990
History of Anticommunism in France with Serge Berstein, Volume 1 (1917-1940) Orban, Paris, 1987
The Communist Party does he Take Power? (The Strategy of the Communist Party from 1930 to Today). Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1981
References
1928 births
2023 deaths
Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery
20th-century French historians
20th-century French Jews
21st-century French historians
21st-century French Jews
Jewish socialists
Jewish historians
Writers from Paris
Historians of communism
Historians of World War I
French Communist Party members
Contemporary historians
Labor historians
Political historians
French male writers
Paris Nanterre University alumni
Academic staff of Blaise Pascal University
Academic staff of Sciences Po
Officers of the Ordre national du Mérite