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Auctioneer: Jérôme Delcamp Expert: Tristan Pimpaneau Tel: +33 (0)3 86 50 05 22 Email: [email protected] Exhibition at the Giraud-Badin Bookshop from Wednesday 23 September 2026, 9 am to 1 pm and 2 pm to 6 pm Foreword Xavier de Planhol (1926–2016) by Jean-Robert Pitte (Member of the Institut de France) Xavier de Planhol occupies a unique place within 20th- and early 21st-century French geography: a strong character, an extraordinary commitment to scholarship, and an originality of thought that led him to explore the lesser-travelled paths of the discipline, which he made fascinating, even for non-geographers. He could not have cared less about trends, nor about trying to win over the media or appeal to the general public. Thanks to several of his illuminating books—free from the jargon that has invaded the humanities in recent decades—he nevertheless achieved this quite unwittingly. He carried out fieldwork in a variety of locations – in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, North Africa and Lorraine – but he drew on an exceptional library to underpin his insights; this collection was partly inherited, but he had, above all, patiently built it up over the course of his life according to his needs and preferences. It is rare for bibliophiles to draw on their hoarded treasures to nourish their work, but this was Xavier de Planhol’s constant concern. His eclectic tastes also led him to collect surprising works that fell outside the field of geography, such as 19th- and early 20th-century hardback children’s books – of which he was one of the leading collectors – or 17th-century baroque and precious novels, or even 19th-century crime novels. In his unpublished memoirs, he writes: ‘I grew up amongst books, and I very much hope to die amongst them. [...] They have offered me the support of their little black lines, the humble comfort of words, the flame of memory. ” His body of work, substantial in volume, is even more so in terms of relevance and originality. Shortly after defending his thesis, he published in 1957 a short but highly insightful volume entitled *Le monde islamique* (*The Islamic World*), in which he envisaged, for the first time in academic literature, a religion as a geographical phenomenon. This served as the basis for a line of thought he pursued for a decade, culminating in the remarkable essay he published in 1968, entitled *The Geographical Foundations of the History of Islam*. His next book was not published until 18 years later, in 1988. This was *The Historical Geography of France*, a new seminal work on a subject that had seemingly been over-explored since the nineteenth century, but which in reality profoundly renewed our understanding of France’s character and raised historical geography to the highest level. This was followed in 1993, again with Fayard, by *The Nations of the Prophet: A Geographical Handbook of Muslim Politics*, followed by *Minorities in Islam: Political and Social Geography*. In 2000, *Islam and the Sea: The Mosque and the Sailor* was published, bringing to a close the series of works he had devoted to the historical geography of the Muslim world. Next came the last and most voluminous of his works, published in 2004, on which he had, as he said, also worked for half a century: *The Animal Landscape*. *Man and Large Wildlife: A Historical Zoogeography*. Just two pages of conclusion bring this true masterpiece—the crowning achievement of his work—to a close. Here are some of the opening sentences: ‘Let us attempt a summary. Man, the supreme predator, was destined to ravage and destroy. He did so. Less, however, than has been claimed, and than is repeated day in, day out.” Politically incorrect he certainly was, but never out of provocation, always out of a conviction carefully established following research of unusual depth. Xavier de Planhol was a man of the nineteenth century, somewhat lost in the twentieth and, even more so, in the twenty-first. He knew nothing of computers, never answered the telephone and had even banished that instrument of the devil from his home towards the end of his life, preferring to communicate by letter. He was a sort of scientific hermit, living in the silent company of his beloved books. The strange life which he had not initially chosen, but which he embraced until the very end, gave rise to a scholar of extraordinary stature. His rigour and methods brought about a profound renewal of the discipline of geography, which he never ceased to love and serve with panache. His legacy lives on in his work and his exceptional library, which is now scattered to the four winds.

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Live September 30th, 2026 at 2:00 PM 75006 Paris - France

Live

September 30th, 2026 at 2:00 PM

75006 Paris - France