SOURCE: Davis, Natalie Z., and Roger Adelson. “Interview with Natalie Zemon Davis.” Historian 53, no. 3 (spring 1991): 404-22.

In the following interview, conducted February 1991, Davis discusses her early life and her work as an innovator in the field of social history.

Born in 1928 in Detroit, Michigan, Davis received her B.A. from Smith College in 1949, her M.A. from Radcliffe College in 1950, and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1959. Since 1978, she has been Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Princeton University and has gained much recognition at home and abroad. Many of Davis's works are being translated into other languages as she broadens historical understanding through her research in sixteenth-century French archives, her explication of early modern European texts, her analysis of the complex roles of culture and gender in history, her use of other disciplines, and her involvement with historical film making. She and her...