Pierre Émile Levasseur (December 8, 1828 – 1911), was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
economistAn economist is an expert in the social science of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
.
He was born and educated in Paris, France. He began teaching in the
lycée at
AlençonAlençon is a commune in Normandy, France, capital of the Orne department. It is situated west of Paris. Alençon belongs to the intercommunality of Alençon .-History:...
in 1852, and in 1857 became professor of
rhetoricRhetoric is one of the arts of using language as a means to persuade. Along with grammar and logic or dialectic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. From ancient Greece to the late 19th Century, it was a central part of Western education, filling the need to train public...
at
BesançonBesançon , is the capital and principal city of the region of Franche-Comté in eastern France. It had a population of about 220,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 1999...
. He returned to Paris to become professor at the lycée Saint Louis, and in 1868 he was chosen a member of the academy of moral and political sciences, in 1872 he was appointed professor of
geographyGeography is the study of the Earth and its lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
,
historyHistory is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns...
and
statisticsStatistics is a branch of mathematics concerned with collecting and interpreting data. According to other definitions, it is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection, analysis, interpretation or explanation, and presentation of data. Statisticians improve the quality of data with the...
in the
College de FranceThe Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Ecoles...
, and subsequently became also professor at the
Conservatoire des arts et métiers and at the
École libre des sciences politiques (which later became known as the
Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris or its widely known nickname of
Sciences Po).
Levasseur was one of the founders of the study of commercial geography, and became a member of the Council of Public Instruction, president of the French society of political economy and honorary president of the French geographical society.
Levasseur was elected member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of SciencesThe Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademin is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2 June...
in 1894.
His numerous writings include:
- La question de l'or (1858)
- Histoire des classes ouvrières en France depuis la conquête de Jules-César jusqu'à la Révolution (1859)
- Histoire des classes ouvrières en France depuis la Révolution jusqu'à nos jours (1867)
- L'Étude et l'enseignement de la géographie (1871)
- La Population française (1889–1892)
- L'Agriculture aux États-Unis (1894)
- L'Enseignement primaire dens les pays civilisés (1897)
- L'Ouvrier américain (1898)
- Questions ouvrières et industrielles sous la Troisième République (1907)
- Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l'industrie en France de 1789 à 1870 (1903–1904)
- Grand Atlas de géographie physique et politique (1890–1894).