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Total History
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Journal of Contemporary History
Total History:
The Annoles School
Now it has happened again (for only the second time in 2,300
years). A third model of historiography has emerged on the banks
of the Seine and has been developed to its present brilliant form by
the historians gathered round the periodical Annales: Economies,
Societes, Civilisations. For Stoianovich, not since Ranke has there
been a more important school or better method of historical re-
search. The origins of this Annales method can be found in the
work of Lucien Febvre (1878-1956) and Marc Bloch (1886-1944). It
had its roots in the French tradition but was also inspired, as its
sub-title suggests, by the German Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial- und
Wirtsch aftsgesch ich te.
Annales first appeared in 1929, a time when Marxist scholars
were attempting to uncover the economic base of the political and
cultural superstructure. If their results were uninspiring they never-
theless encouraged interest in a more scientific approach. However,
from the beginning the founders of Annales felt that both the Third
Republic style of history and the economic determinism of the
Marxists were too constricting for the kind of historiography they
had in mind. They aspired to higher things - to a discipline which
both dominated and embraced all other studies of the human con-
dition. They celebrated every attempt to enlarge Clio's realm.
Hence their admiration for Jacob Burckhardt (d. 1897) who
brought about a shift from conventional history to
Kulturgeschichte, which for Karl Lamprecht could only be
'primarily a socio-psychological science', a formulation which un-
doubtedly influenced later Annales evolution. And Wilhelm
Dilthey (d. 1911) produced with his kind of Geistesgeschichte the
outline of what would in a more advanced stage of Annales growth
appear as histoire des mentalites. However, the detection of
sources cannot impair the originality of the enterprise launched by
Febvre and Bloch at the end of the 1920s, which also witnessed the
publication of the first volume of Henri Berr's collection -
L'Evolution de l'Humanite with its overall title Synthese Histori-
que. The need for a fusion of economic, social and cultural history
was increasingly felt and the magic word 'synthesis' was em-
broidered on the new flag. Even if in those days nearly half a cen-
tury ago the first Annales researchers were still far from the recent
proudly imperialistic cri de guerre uttered by Emmanuel Le Roy
Ladurie, one of the present champions of the current: 'History is
the synthesis of all social sciences (sciences de l'homme) turned
towards the past' - where the original braquees is far stronger
time from inside the Annales empire, have started to express a cer-
tain uneasiness about the neglect of what was once considered the
mainstream of historical writing. Jacques Le Goff,13 a specialist in
the study of various cultural and ethnic medieval traditions, was
perhaps the first to ring the alarm bell. He complained that the in-
clination to relegate 'events' - generally speaking, political history
- to the background presents the reader with only
an 'atrophied appendix' of real history (since, paradoxically,
political history is allegedly seen by Annales eyes as such an
appendix). Bernard Guenee'4 too is concerned at the absence of in-
terest in the history of the State demonstrated by researchers too
absorbed by 'economics' and 'society'. It was mainly for these
reasons, as was at least recognized by Braudel himself, that it took
so long for the Annales school to gain recognition outside France.
Another reason lay in its specific Frenchness, and a third could
have been its bold and wide synthesizing. For G.G. Diligenskij, a
Soviet critic,16 the school's main vices are its refusal to accept the
Marxist periodization of history, its too narrow chronological
limits resulting from a curiosity directed especially towards pre-
industrial societies, its publication of 'outright' anti-Soviet material
(this argument contradicts the previous one), its attempts to include
the study of mentalities in a general synthesis, which can only lead
to the publication of articles reflecting a basic reliance upon faith
accompanied by a consequent disparagement of reason, a most
extraordinary accusation to be aimed at Annales. Further on,
Professor Diligenskij finds 'a vulgar biological materialism' in
articles published by the review and considers that in spite of
studies of a certain value, as a whole the journal expresses 'the
crisis of bourgeois historical thought and its panic-stricken fear of
historical materialism.'16 Other historians, Anglo-Saxon this time,
could not stomach Braudel's method, which can be rightly
considered as an epitome of the Annales style. Professor Geoffrey
Parker, an admirer of both Braudel and his review, enjoyed himself
collecting critical opinions about the French historian's master-
piece'7: G.R. Elton was disappointed back in 1967 that the only
things missing in Braudel's Mediterranean were 'policy and action';
H.S. Hughes thought that the different sections of the book 'never
quite came together'; Felix Gilbert remarked in 1971 that 'Braudel
never fully succeeds in showing the relevance of the long-range de-
velopments for the events in the period of Philip II'; and John
Elliot, in 1973, that 'Braudel's mountains move his men, but never
his men the mountains.' Geoffrey Parker, on the other hand, states
that this work, which took 26 years in the writing, is 'a masterpiece
which will stand for ever', a sweeping statement concerning a study
in history. Other sincere admirers of both Annales and Braudel,
such J.H. Hexter'8 who praises the French historian's proud
formula 'History is the science of the sciences of man', cannot
nevertheless conceal a certain uneasiness about the hatred felt by
Annales scholars for poor histoire evenementielle. Hexter is even
led to complain that about that kind of history Braudel 'writes
with a passionate and at timers unreasonable antipathy' -
unreasonableness being not usually considered a virtue in an
historian.
Professor H.R. Trevor-Roper appears no less favourably dis-
posed towards his French colleagues of the Annales tendency; but
thinks the kind of 'great history' they are attempting sometimes
'seems beyond human powers."9 He is also somewhat taken aback
by their above-mentioned 'antipathy' (especially that of Braudel)
towards political history, the study of the domination of man by
man and of the way in which the many are led by the few. Trevor-
Roper tries to explain that to Braudel and his disciples 'this political
history is merely the topmost layer of his multidimensional study:
the long-exposed layer which has been rendered familiar by
previous research'.The point is, of course, that 'previous research'
had been done outside the Annales sphere of influence.
Accordingly it was done 'flatly', without the benefit of the deep
synthesizing research which is a must for this French historical
school. Therefore, for a rational, consistent, coherent Annales
scholar all that Trevor-Roper calls the 'familiar. . . layer' of
political history appears not only as unfamiliar but even as
completely useless. On the other hand, to outsiders, the original sin
of Annales scholarship is its lack of interest in political history
which has led to the subsequent dearth of studies in this field, so
that the Annales stalwarts disdainfully criticize the way other
historians tackle the problem without being able to point out how
it could have been done in their new fashion. Till a couple of years
ago, Annales scholarship escaped the dilemma by denying, en bloc,
the need for political history; this created an atmosphere in which
the study of such history was considered as being beneath the
dignity of a fully-fledged French docteur d'Etat. Until quite
recently the Annales editorial board refused to print articles dealing
with purely political problems, oligarchies, ruling groups, social
It has already been said that the flaw in the majestic structure
was felt by the younger Annales scholars, who consequently started
to produce political-historical studies. Lately the master himself,
Professor Braudel, has had second thoughts about the matter: 'I
don't think of society the way I did forty years ago', he said in a re-
cent interview; 'there is no society without hierarchy. You have
economic hierarchy - the rich and the poor; cultural hierarchy-
the knowledgeable and the ignorant; political hierarchy - the
rulers and the ruled. The hierarchies maintain themselves. The per-
manence of hierarchies - I didn't see this problem with enough
depth.'25 Mieux vaut tard quejamais ... A system of thought able
to overcome its idiosyncrasies has an open future; the formidable
Annales 'school' has not yet said its last word.
The storms of May-June 1968 in France - the students' revolt
and the collapse of the university system - affected the academic
institution which was the main basis of Annales scholarship during
its struggling years. A chain reaction of reforms abolished that in-
stitution - the Sixieme Section de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes -
which became finally, in 1975, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en
Sciences Sociales, with the right to grant degrees.
And so, after all, Annales finally conquered most of the French
academic system dealing with historical research and even crossed
the ocean. In May 1977 a Fernard Braudel Center for the Study of
Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations was inaugurated
at the State University of New York at Binghamton. The inter-
disciplinary synthesis is turning into an international, global one,
under the blue-white-red flag - in the realm of history, France is a
super-power!
Professor Stoianovich was therefore quite correct when, sum-
ming up his analysis he stated that the total effect of Annales in-
quiry since its foundation has been to create an historical paradigm
for the world community of historical scholarship. This community
is now challenged by an intellectual realm fabulously rich, teeming
with fertile ideas, with daring initiatives, an ever-expanding
universe of research and synthesis, to which Traian Stoinovich's
book is the best passport, the more so as it is the only one.
NOTES
Michael Harsgor
is Professor of Early Modern History at the
University of Tel Aviv.
PRINCETON
Soldiers of Destruction
The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945
CHARLES W. SYDNOR, JR.
Drawing extensively upon a wide variety of SS manuscript sources and
captured German Army materials, Charles Sydnor relates the political
and military experience of the SS Totenkopfdivision to the institutional
development of the SS and the ideological objectives of Nazi Ger-
many. Illus. * $22.50
I
JOAN CAMPBELL
Campbell traces the history of one of Germany's foremost cultural or-
ganizations from its founding in 1907 to 1934, when it was absorbed into
the bureaucracy of the National Socialist State. Illus. * $20.00