Marcel Granet

Marcel Granet (1884 to 1940) was a French sociologist, ethnologist and sinologist who, as a follower of Emile Durkheim and Edouard Chavannes, was among the first to bring sociological methods to the study of China, and who belonged to the Durkheimian school. Born in Luc-en-Diois in the Drome, he entered the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1904, took the agregation in history in 1907 and studied feudalism on a Fondation Thiers grant, then went to China in 1911 to study classical Chinese texts. In 1913 he succeeded Chavannes as director of studies for the religions of the Far East at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, and from 1925 he was professor of the geography, history and institutions of the Far East at the Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes and a founder of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises. His books include La religion des Chinois (1922). Sinologists have criticized him as speculative and as positing a single Chinese mind, while his influence is described as vast and lasting. He died at Sceaux in 1940.