Positions historiques. Un entretien avec Marcel Bénabou

Panayiotis Christoforou - Federico Santangelo

Abstract:

An interview with the author and Roman historian Marcel Bénabou on his upbringing, his intellectual influences, and his reflections on the current and future state of Roman history. The interview, held in Paris on 29 March 2023, revolved around his Moroccan background, his education in France, and the agenda and impact of his seminal 1976 book La résistance africaine à la romanisation. The conversation brings into focus Bénabou's unique standpoint vis-à-vis his background and intellectual journey: not indigenous, not colonised, but not coloniser either, a positionality that to his mind gave him a distinctive view on the process of conquest and its resistances in North Africa under the Roman Empire.