HST287: Summary Narrative, 30-Sept-2004
Peter Burke: The Frech Historical Revolution
Burke sets up his introduction by stressing the importance of the
Annales group and providing a
summary of what he considers the leading
ideas. He then describes how the book is laid out, and provides the now
standard caveats: he apologizes for taking liberties with the
chronology, for the limited scope of the work and calls for a more
massive study.
He opens the first chapter with a "semi-longue durée" look, as
it
were, a who's who and what's what of European historians and
historiography before the founding of Annales.
Like Collingwood, he
considers pre-18th century history to be defined as chronicles of great
deeds by great men. He traces the rise of a history of society beyond
politics in the mid 18th century, followed by the Rankian "revolution"
and backlash of the 19th. If you recall, Leopold von Ranke was noted
for his emphasis on accumulating facts and details from primary
resources to reconstruct the past, and for his efforts to
professionalize history, a movement, that was paralleled in literature,
by the way. (And a side note: he is also credited with instituting the
practice of
teaching history classes in seminar form.) Burke then divides late 19th
century historians into two camps: Rankian and anti-Rankian, listing as
anti-Rankian such people and ideas as Comté, who advocated a
'history
without names,' Marx and his structuralism, Lamprecht who called for a
history of the people, and Robinson who supported interdisciplinary
approaches. He compares these to Rankians, among whom are Durkheim, who
encouraged generalization and comparative methods, and Simiand who
criticized what he saw as the "idols of the tribe of historians":
political, individual, and chronological.
The second chapter deals with the founders, Febvre and Bloch. After
describing their early educatioanl background and influences, he
describes their early major works. Bloch wrote The Royal Touch, a
study in kingship and belief centered on the idea that kings could heal
by their touch. Burke calls this work remarkable for three reasons: it
was not confined to a particular period, rather it let the subject
dictate the period to be studied (le longue durée); it focused
on
belief systems or the psychology of beliefs; and, it was a limited
comparative history, comparing similar activities across two cultures
(French and English).
Moving to Febvre, Burke points out that his Reformation and Renaissance
studies focus on social history and collective psychology, stress
internal evolution and the importance of the bourgeoisie, and while
seeming, in the case of his study of Luther, to be a biography,
actually
alter the genre to highlight the relationship between an individual and
a group.
Moving to the founding of the Annales,
Burke says that "it was
conceived as
more than just another historical journal. Its editors were consciously
determined to take intellectual leadership in economic and social
history" (p. 21). They also emphasized the need for intellectual
exchange between disciplines. In the early years the journal had an
economic focus. After 1930, the emphasis shifted to one of social
history. He then describes the work of Bloch's later years, though he
has little to say about the nature of Bloch's life and his eventual
execution. (Hal's
article)
Post-war, Febvre institutionalizes the Annales
and its followers when he sets up a department, the Sixth
Section, within the Ecole
Pratique des Hautes Etudes, and fills positions with like-minded
scholars. Burke does not explore the political rammifications of this
move.
Chapter 3 moves to the "next generation" of Braudel, beginning with his
monumental (and incredibly long gestating) The Mediterranean. Burke describes
the three-part work in backwards order, moving from the detailed
political and military history and quasi-biography of Phillip II, to
the
history of the structures that led to polarization of the area
described, and finishing where Braudel begins, with a
geographical/geological
history of the region. Burke does point out that the work has been
criticized: some of Braudel's conclusions have since been challenged,
that 'total history' still leaves out attitudes, values, and collective
mentalities, that the book fails to concern itself with a problem, that
there is too much determinism, and that though he claims to be writing
geo-history he
shows no changes in geology. However, Burke concludes that: "Braudel
has done more to change our
notions of both space and time
than any other historian this century," praising his meta view of the
Mediterranean, of time, and of structures.
He continues chapter three with a look at the career of Braudel, his
work The History of Material Culture,
his influence and skill in building the institution of scholars, and
the rise of quantitaive history, first visible in economic history with
the study of the history of prices, then in social history with the
study of populations.
In chapter four he moves to the post-Braudellian changes (and possibly
reactions to Braudel), in what he says some call the fragmentation of
the Annales. He counters that
fragmented it may be, but the fragments
are interesting. They include women historians and an interest in
women's history, as well as a shift from economics to cultural history.
He describes Aries' work on childhood in some detail, and mentions
other historians who broadened the scope of the Annales by studying
historical psychology, mentalities, serial history and quantitative
history. He then folows these developments to a renewed interest in
anthropology, politics, and narrative and wonders about how media
reaction to, and popularity of these topics has effected the Annales groups's interests.
In the last chapter he provides some impressions of the impact of the
Annales group on other
historians and methodologies, and concludes
that while the Annales scholars
were not unique in their ideas with
respect to comparative methods,
interdisciplinarity, quantitative methods, cycles regional history and
later, anthropological and microhistory, he does assert that the
combination of these was
unique to the Annales.
So, to re-cap: the Annales developments
include
"problem-oriented history, comparative history, historical psychology,
geo-history, the history of the long term, serial history, and
historical anthropology," and has "extended the territory of history. .
.[to]new sources and the developments of new methods to exploit
them...They are also associated with collaboration with other
disciplines that ... has been sustained over sixty years, a phenomenon
without parallel."
Would you say Burke has written history, as defined by the Annalistes?
hope.greenberg@uvm.edu,
created/updated: 27-Sept-2004/30-Sept-2004
Back to reading notes