What should we take from the Second World War?
This event is co-organised with the French Institute in Prague, Vyšehrad Publishing and the Jewish Museum of Prague.
Date: November 5, 2025, 18:00
Location: Maisel Synagogue, Prague 1
Language: French (with simultaneous interpretation into Czech)
The conversation will be moderated by the historian Vojtěch Kyncl (Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences). Admission to the event is free of charge, reserve your place here.
On the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, when Europe is once again confronted with a war of aggression on its soil after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this conversation with historian Olivier Wieviorka gives an essential opportunity to revisit the lessons of a global conflict which maintains a tragic resonance in our present.
Olivier Wieviorka offers a global and multi-dimensional reading of conflict, beyond the military alone, in Histoire totale de la Seconde Guerre mondiale (A Complete History of the Second World War (Perrin / ministère des Armées, 2023)). His approach integrates economic, political, social, logistic, cultural, technological, and memorial dimensions to demonstrate that war cannot be understood only through battles.
This work is distinguished equally by its refusal to limit its analysis to Europe. The book widens its focus to regions often neglected in traditional narratives, that is, to the Asia–Pacific (specially China), North Africa and the Middle East.
Olivier Wieviorka makes reference to the most recent research from both francophone and anglophone academia. His style, at once clear and rigorous, makes the dense and academic subject of his book accessible to readers. This combination of depth and readability has led to positive critical reception, and the work is set to become a modern classic of historiography on the Second World War.
Olivier Wieviorka is a professor at the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay and a leading expert of the Second World War. His research focuses principally on the political, military, and social history of conflict, but also the memories and representations which arise from it. The author of numerous books, he is most interested by the French resistance, the Normandy Landings of 1944, and the construction of memory. His work, praised for its depth and clarity, has led him to be considered as an essential voice within the historiography of the Second World War.