Charles-Olivier Carbonell (20 June 1930 – 8 July 2013) was a French historian and historiographer who worked to put history as a profession on a sound scientific footing.
[1] Carbonell was an important figure in writing about the development of French historiography by pioneering historians of the 19th century.
He broke out of narrow constraints of domestic narratives, and expanded his research to look at comparative history among different countries in Europe over a period of millennia, and inspired a group of young historians.
Carbonell did content analysis, showing the subjective views of writers of the period, for example referring to German soldiers as "barbarians", "butchers", "brigands".
Ernst Lavisse described them as "voracious", "animal-like", "sweaty"; and similarly in books about the Paris Commune of 1871.