Bérard, Victor, 1864-1931

Victor Bérard (French: [beʁaʁ]; Morez, 10 August 1864 – Paris, 13 November 1931) was a French diplomat and politician. Today, he is still renowned for his works about Hellenistic studies and geography of the Odyssey. Bérard's "L'Angleterre et l'impérialisme" was translated into English and published in 1906 as "British imperialism and commercial supremacy" (Longmans, Green, London, New York). A former student at the École normale supérieure (Paris), Victor Bérard conducted archeological work as a member of the French School at Athens (1887 to 1890). This would lead him to perform frequent travels across the Ottoman Empire, on which occasions he was distressed by the misery of the Armenians and the Old Christians. His PhD thesis is devoted to the ancient cults in Arcadia and their genesis. Throughout the 1890s, he was a chronicler for Revue de Paris, reporting mostly about the political events in Greece and the Ottoman Empire.