Born in 1923 in Avignon (France), from 1943 to 1947 studied at the National School of Archivists paleographers Paris, specializing in medieval history. In 1947 he moved to the United States, where he will stay and develop their intellectual and academic career. PhD in Modern History from the University of Indiana in 1950, literary readings (Stendhal, Proust, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Cervantes) will put you on the track of mimetic theory and its future will lead to the writing of his first book, Lies and romantic truly novel (1961). In 1972 he published The violence and the sacred, work that involves entry into the field of anthropology and is first met with silence and negative reviews. Professor at several American universities (Duke, Johns Hopkins, New York), from 1981 until his retirement in 1995, taught at the University of Stanford. In 1996 he received the Grand Prize of the French Academy of Philosophy by the body of work since 2005 and is an elected member of that institution. Among his books are also noted The Scapegoat (1982), Shakespeare. The fires of envy (1990) and I see Satan fall like lightning (1999).