Obituary: Francois Furet

Francois Furet, one of the world's leading authorities on the French Revolution, died July 12 in Toulouse, France, where he had been treated for a head injury he suffered while playing tennis earlier in the week. He was 70.

A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 27, in Bond Chapel.

Furet, the Raymond W. and Martha Hilpert Gruner Distinguished Service Professor in Social Thought, also had been Director d'Etudes at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in France. In March, Furet was elected to the Academie Francaise, France's premier intellectual society.

He joined the Chicago faculty in 1985 and spent each autumn quarter on campus.

Furet, one of France's leading scholars, helped redefine the interpretation of the French Revolution through his many books, including Interpreting the French Revolution (1978), Marx and the French Revolution (1986), The Revolution 1770-1880 (1988) and A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1988), which he co-edited.

He is also the author of Le Passe d'une Illusion (1995), a volume about the rise and fall of European communism, which is being translated into 16 languages.

"He was responsible, more than anyone else, for the revival of liberal thinking in France," said Nathan Tarcov, Chairman of the Committee on Social Thought.

Survivors include his wife, Deborah Kan, and their daughter, both of Paris, and a son from a previous marriage.