Vincent Lemire | |
|---|---|
_in_the_video_'Vincent_Lemire_and_Christian_Grataloup_-_Atlas_historique_du_Moyen-Orient'.png) In a 2025 interview | |
| Born | 1973 (age 52–53) Paris, France |
| Relatives | Alain MacMoy (father-in-law) |
| 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 |
| Workplaces | University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée |
| Thesis | La soif de Jérusalem (2006) |
| Robert Ilbert | |
Vincent Lemire (born 1973) is a French historian, who directs the French Research Center.
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.
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.
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.
In 2013 Lemire was awarded the Prix Augustin Thierry for his book Jérusalem 1900. La ville sainte à l'âge des possibles.
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.
Vincent Lemire's work on the history of Jerusalem in the Ottoman, Mandate and contemporary periods has generally received positive reviews from the academic community. 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.
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.
