La grippe espagnole : une historiographie centenaire revisitée

The history of the Spanish flu which occurred a century ago presents an exemplary case of the renewal of the historians’ questionnaire concerning an event of the past. Several historiographic interests have transformed the understanding of this pandemic since the 1970s. This article traces these interpretative trends conferring to this event a plurality of meanings using different documentation. I distinguish three layers: the construction of a global catastrophic event from a mosaic of local case studies; the fragmentation of this event by focusing on the experience of the individuals and the context of the Great War; the Spanish flu as an episode in the long history of this disease. These layers are inextricably linked to the transformations of the relationship between societies and infections since 1918. What is at stake in the historiographical debate and its reception must be resituated in the battle to tell the past and mobilize its meaning in the present.