SOURCE: Snowman, Daniel. “Natalie Zemon Davis.” History Today 52, no. 10 (October 2002): 18-20.

In the following essay, Snowman discusses Davis's unique approach to history in such works as The Return of Martin Guerre, Women on the Margins, Slaves on Screen, and others.

What is history? What is it about and how should it be portrayed? Such questions are much in the air these days. But few have examined them more consistently and imaginatively than Natalie Zemon Davis.

Widely revered as (variously) a leading historian of early modern France, a left-leaning intellectual who helped pioneer the shift from social to cultural history, and one of the great iconic figures of feminist history, Natalie Davis is not ‘simply’ any of these. The sheer versatility of her skills, and her capacity to incorporate multiple meanings, defy simplistic labelling. Like a jeweller turning a diamond this way and that in different lights, Davis insists...