Davis, Natalie (Ann) Zemon (1928- )

US historian. She gained a PhD and taught at various universities, taking up a post at Princeton in 1978. A foremost practitioner of the ‘new social history’, she researched the lives of the artisans, labourers, and peasants of 16th-century France.

She was born in Detroit, Michigan and educated at Smith and Radcliffe Colleges and the University of Michigan. Before going to Princeton, she taught at Brown University, the University of Toronto, and the University of California at Berkeley. Her French research formed the background for such works as The Return of Martin Guerre, which was used as the basis for the French film Le Retour de Martin Geurre (1982), and the US adaptation of it, Sommersby (1993).