Annales School

8/10/2019 Annales School

1/14

Total History: The Annales SchoolAuthor(s): Michael HarsgorReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Jan., 1978), pp. 1-13Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/260089.

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2/14

Michael

Harsgor

Total

History:

The Annoles School

In

a

spirit

of

self-mockery

Heinrich Heine wrote that other nations

may

be

powerful

on land and

sea but Germans dominated the air.

He

was,

of

course,

referring

to that

thin

spiritual atmosphere

in

which the

philosophers

floated their dreams and

theories.

Today, in the second half of the twentieth century, while other

powers

measure

their

strength

in

terms of armoured

divisions or

technological prowess,

the French

reign

supreme

in

historiography.

That

at least

is

the view of

Professor Traian

Stoianovich

in

his in-

structive

study

of the

contemporary

French historical

school -

especially

as

represented by

Annales.'

According

to

Stoianovich,

there are

three nations who have led

the world

in

the field

of

historical

scholarship;

in

two,

Greece and

Germany,

the

flame of

creativity

has

been

extinguished

but it

continues to burn

brightly

in

France.

The

Greeks,

and

nobody

will

disagree

with

Professor

Stoianovich

about their

merits,

are

praised

as

the

pioneers

of

historiography. By

their

exemplary

presentation

of

facts

they

in-

tended to train

historians in

the

spirit

of

wisdom

anud virtue

and

so

fit them

for

public

service. For the

Greeks, then,

history

was

a

'useful'

discipline.

As well as

the

classical

authors,

Stoianovich

also

includes

Machiavelli,

Guicciardioni,

Bodin

and

Francis

Bacon

as

belonging to this school i.e. history as useful. The second

historiographical

paradigm,

according

to

Stoianovich,

appeared

only

in

the

eighteenth

century

when

the

study

of

history

was

redefined

and

given

a

sense of

development.

But

this

second

model

only

came

to

fruition

with

Leopold

von

Ranke's,

'wie es

eigentlich

war',

who

with

his

deep

respect

for

the

infinite

variations of

past

experience

was

determined to

write

history

strictly

as

a

scientific

report

(or

aspiring

to be

such);

his

only

concession

to

fashion

being

his

florid

style.

Journal

of

Contemporary

History (SAGE,

London and

Beverly

Hills),

Vol

13

(1978),

1-13

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3/14

Journal

of

Contemporary History

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

ur

Sozial-

und

Wirtschaftsgeschichte.

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

2



4/14


5/14

Journal

of

Contemporary

History

demographic

studies

published by

Annales researchers. Historical

demography,

an autonomous

discipline developing

in

an at-

mosphere

permeated

by

'the

growing

attraction of non-consensual

history'

(T.

Stoianovich)

turned out to be an Annales

speciality.

Pierre Goubert's

eagerness

and

talent

in

the

study

of

parish

records

brought

forth

a work

hailed

as a

masterpiece

when it was

pub-

lished,

Beauvais

et le Beauvaisis de 1600

a

1730;

4

the

breakthrough

in

serial

history proved

that,

once

mastered,

the method could

successfully

deal

with

subjects

like

religious history

-

a

field

of

research

to whose

'serialisation' Pierre

Chaunu had attracted atten-

tion - or like the study of sexual behavior in the past, a domain in

which Jean-Louis

Flandrin has won

his

spurs.

Structuralism

is not

accepted by everyone sheltering

under

the

Annales

umbrella.

It is also true that

very

much is asked:

not

only

the

analysis

of

an economic

structure,

that

is,

the

organization

of

a

given

economic

variable

with its

significance

to

the

general

economic

system

and its

precise

relationship

to

other variables

such

as

cost,

prices,

income,

money,

interest

rates,

rents;

but

also the

analysis of the impact of conjunctures, that is, factors of cyclical or

oscillatory

movement.

The

problem

of Annales researchers

was

to

build

models

of social

structures

(not

only

economic

ones)

'taken

from

life',

which means

covering

the skeleton

of the basic

economic

analysis

with the

flesh of

demographic,

cultural,

mental

and even

psychoanalytical

data.

An

uphill

task.

Structuralism

in-

deed elevated

historiography

seen

through

Annales

eyes

to

the

posi-

tion

occupied

by

theology

in the

Middle

Ages

and

by

philosophy

during

the

Enlightenment

-

the

imperial highway

to the sum

of

human

knowledge

(even

if

representatives

of the trend are modest

enough

to

disclaim

any

such

ambitions).

Thus,

for

instance,

was

geography

annexed

by

Annales

his-

toriography

with Fernand

Braudel's

La

Mediterrannee

et

le monde

mediterraneen

l'epoque

de

Philippe

II

in

1949.5

The

reader

navigating

Braudel's

Mediterranean

for

the

first time discovers

not

only

a new

kind

of

geohistory;

he floats

on

a sea of

pretentious

language

-

a

literary

style,

heir

to a

secular

tradition

of belles-

lettres, serves the writer's aim: suggesting more than a prosaic

rendering

can

bear,

somehow

evoking

the

untold

wealth

of 'total'

or

'global'

history (the

use

of

which

adjectives

by

Annales

historians

suggests

that

they

claim

for

themselves

all

the territories

occupied

by

the

various

social

sciences).

A

generation

later,

Emmanuel

Le

Roy

Ladurie showed

how

4



6/14

Harsgor:

Total

History:

The Annales School

climatology

can be

transformed into an

auxiliary

science of

history.

In fact

with his

Les

Paysans

du

Languedoc

6

he demonstrated the

usefulness

of

zoogeography,

meteorology

and

phytogeography

-

which

is,

as

everybody

knows,

the

biogeography

of

plants

-

for

the

study

of

history.

Of

course,

with fields of

enquiry

widening

to such cosmic

pro-

portions

an historical

study

must

grow

mammoth-like and consume

the

scholar's best

years,

which

is a rule for a French

These

d'Etat;

(but

only

the

existence

of this

peculiar

institution

permitted

the

Annales'

flowering).

Thus Pierre Chaunu's

monumental thesis

Seville et l'Atlantique - 1504-16507was an oceanic work in more

than one

sense,

eight

volumes

which

in

print

amounted to eleven.

Chaunu elaborated

Braudel's notion

of

pesee globale

-

global

weighing

-

an

important stepping-stone

on

the

journey

to total

historiography.

What

is

meant

by

that is the

weighing up

of whole

civilizations

in

order to

compare

them one

with

another: the 'direc-

tions for use'

ask,

roughly

speaking,

for an

approximate

evaluation

of

the

energy

sources

of

a

given society

-

horses, oxen,

firewood,

waterwheels, ships, workingmen, etc. - of its logistic facilities, its

notions

of

time

and

space,

its

leadership

techniques

-

and

balanc-

ing

these data

with

a similar

summing

up

of

another

society:

Western

Europe

and

China,

for instance. Here

one has

struc-

turalism

vindicated

by

comparative

history.

As

for

functionalism,

the

least

elaborated notion

of

the Annales

triad,

it must

be

understood as the

study

of the

interaction of

the

three traditional

fields

of interest

-

conomies,

societes,

civilisa-

tions

-

the

dynamics

of their

triple

relationship

and

their hierar-

chical and dialectical

interdependence.

This

very

ambitious

view

of

historiography

has been under

attack,

often

with

political

overtones,

from rival

schools

-

in

spite

of the fact that

Annales

people

include researchers of

left-wing

views,

such as the

distinguished

specialist

of Greek

history

Pierre

Vidal-Naquet,

and

the

people

active

on the

centre-right,

ike

the

above-

mentioned Pierre Chaunu.

But

all

the

Annales

scholars,

conscious

that

they

are

considered as

standing

at the

vanguard

of

historical

research, see themselves not as 'intellectual revolutionaries' but as

revolutionaries

in

the

realm of

intellectual

discovery.

It must be

added

also that their

horror of

dogmatism,

in

spite

of a

certain

set

of

totems and

taboos

of

which more

later,

serves as

a

saving grace.

Marxist

historians followed

the

genesis

of the

Annales

current

with

deep misgivings. During

the

Cold

War the

'school' was under

5



7/14


8/14

Harsgor:

Total

History:

The Annales School

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 Mediterraneanwere '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

7



9/14

Journal

of

Contemporary History

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

8



10/14

Harsgor:

Total

History:

The Annales

School

hierarchies:

such

stuff

was

thought

of as

good

for the

classical

trend represented by Roland Mousnier and the Revue Historique,

but

unfitting

for

a review

dedicated to the

study

of

'economics,

societies,

civilizations

.

..'

There would have been

no

way

out had

not some

younger

Annales scholars

grown

restless.

They

started,

somewhat

belatedly,

to

publish

in

their review

a

series of

fine

studies

in

which

political-

social

history

was treated

in

'the

new

way'.

Such were the

articles

by

Jean

Berenger

about

the institution of the

ministeriat

('ministry'

is an awkward

translation)

during

the

seventeenth cen-

tury,20Daniel Dessert's

innovating

'Colbert

lobby',21

Dominique

Bouret's

illuminating

study

about

politics

in

medieval

epic poetry22

and

the

remarkable work

done

by

Marc Ferro

on

the birth of

Soviet

bureaucracy,

with

the

help

of

archive research on the

spot

(a

rare

event

anyway).23

And,

indeed,

at

this

point

one arrives

at

the

heart

of

the Annales

paradox.

Eager

as

they

were to

enlarge

to the

utmost the vast

regions circumscribing

the

kernel of classical

historiography,

the

Annales pioneers tended to neglect the kernel itself. But surely if

the

heart of the

matter is lost

no

grandiose

synthesis

can ever be

achieved

(one

shrewd

observer remarked

that there is no

sense

in

conquering

the

world

only

to

lose one's

soul

in

the

process).24

The

proof

of

the

pudding

is in

the

eating

and

therefore the reader is in-

vited

to

attempt

the

following daunting

experiment:

let

him

read

everything

published

since

the second world

war

on

a certain

sub-

ject

-

let

us

say England,

or

France,

or

Spain

during

the

last

three

or four

centuries

before the

industrial

revolution,

in

any scholarly

review

of

historical

studies

belonging

to

the

classical

school,

which

for

our

purpose

means

not of the

Annales

type.

Even if

the

editorial

board seems to

be still

evenement-oriented,

a

careful

reader

should

be

able to

extract

from

his

lengthy reading

much

useful

information

concerning

the

economy,

the

society,

the

civilization

of

a

given

country

at

a

given

time.

Now let him

turn

to

the

same

subject,

as it

has

appeared

in

Annales

since 1945

to

our

own

day:

it

would

be

very

difficult

for

the

reader

to learn

something about the policy, the constitutional structure, about

what

the French

call

polemologie (the

study

of

wars),

about

diplomacy,

about

the

body

politic,

about

the

ruling

groups

and

social

hierarchies,

lost as

he would

be

in

an

ocean of

economics,

sociology

and

'civilizationics',

if

the

crude

neologism

can be

forgiven.

9



11/14

Journal

of Contemporary

History

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.'25Mieux 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.

10



12/14

Harsgor:

Total

History:

The Annales

School

NOTES

1. Traian

Stoianovich,

French Historical

Method,

The Annales

Paradigm,

with a foreword

by

Fernand

Braudel,

(London

1976).

2.

Francois

Simiand is the author of

Recherches

anciennes

et

nouvelles sur le

mouvement

general

des

prix

du XVIe au XIXe siecles

(Paris

1932);

Inflation

et

stabilisation

alternees;

le

developpement

economique

des Etats- Unis

(Paris

1934);

an

old

Simiand article was

reprinted

in

Annales

(January-February 1960)

'Methode

historique

et science

sociale';

for material on Simiand cf.

Stoianovich,

op.

cit.,

200

n.38 & 40. Henri Hauser was Marc Bloch's

predecessor

in

the Sorbonne

chair

of

economic history; among other books he is the author of La response de Jean Bodin

a M. de

Malestroit

(1568)

(Paris 1932);

Recherches et documents sur l'histoire des

prix

en France

de

1500 d 1800

(Paris 1936).

3. C.-E. Labrousse is the author of

Esquisse

du mouvement des

prix

et

des

revenus en France au XVIIIe

siecle

(Paris 1933);

La

Crise de l'economie

francaise

a

la

fin

de

I'Ancien

Regime

et au debut

de

la

Revolution

(Paris 1944);

on

Meuvret,

cf.

Stoianovich,

op.

cit.,

172

n.

46; 199,

n.36

and on

Spooner,

ibid.,

199 n.37.

4.

Goubert's these was

published

in

Paris

in

1960

(a paperback

edition for the

general public appeared

in

1968 under the title

Cent Mille

provinciaux

au

XVIIe

siecle).

5. Braudel's thought was influenced both by the structure and style of Lucien

Febvre's these

d'Etat:

Philippe

II et la Franche-Comte:

Etude

d'histoire

politique,

religieuse

et

sociale,

(Paris

1911)

(a paperback

edition without

foot-notes was

published

in

1970);

another

influence

was

that of Simiand's

theories,

discussed in

Georg

(sic)

I.

Iggers,

New directions

in

European

Historiography

(Middletown,

Conn.

1975),

59. Braudel's

Mediterranean

appeared

in a new edition

in 1966 and

was translated

by

Sian

Reynolds

under the

title:

The Mediterranean

and

the

Mediterranean

world

in the

age

of

Philip

II

(London

1972-3).

Other

works

by

Braudel

include

Ecrits sur

l'histoire,

(Paris 1969),

and

Civilisation

materielle et

capitalisme

-

XVe et XIXe

siecles,

(Paris

1967).

6. Le Roy Ladurie's Paysans was published in 1966; his history of the climate

was

translated

by

Barbara

Bray

under

the title

Times

of feast,

times

of famine,

a

history of

the climate

since the

year

1000

(London

1971);

this

author,

together

with

Jean

Paul

Aron,

published

Anthropologie

du conscrit

franfais

d'apres

les

comptes

numeriques

et

sommaires

du

recrutement de

l'armee 1819-1826

(Paris

1972).

7.

Chaunu's Seville was

published,

with a

preface

by

Lucien

Febvre,

in

1955-59. This

historian is a

very

prolific

writer,

an

astounding

feat

considering

the

quality

of his

output.

He is the

author,

inter

alia,

of

L'Amerique

et

les

Americains

(Paris

1964); L'expansion

europeenne

du XIIIe

au

XVe

siecle

(Paris

1965);

La

Civilisation

de

l'Europe

classique

(Paris 1966);

Conquete

et

exploration

des

nouveaux mondes

-

XVIe siecle (Paris 1969); L'Espagne de Charles Quint (Paris

1973);

Histoire Science

Sociale,

la

duree,

l'espace

et

l'homme d

l'epoque

moderne

(Paris

1974);

Le

Temps

des

Reformes

(Paris

1975).

8. For

the relations

between

Annales and

Marxist

historians,

see the

index of-

Stoianovich's

book,

253.

11



13/14

Journal

of

Contemporary

History

9.

The

'official'

Marxist historian

of

France,

Jacques Soboul,

was

accused

by

a

brilliant Annales

man,

Daniel

Richet,

of

carelessness

(it

is an

understatement)

and

failure to make proper acknowledgements; to follow the tragi-comic incident one

must read the letters

exchanged

between

the

two historians in

Annales

XXV,

(1970),

1494-96.

10.

It

is

instructive

to

notice that the basic book

on

'oriental

despotism'

appeared

in

1957: Karl

August

Wittfogel's

Oriental

Despotism:

A

Comparative

Study of

Total Power

(New Haven)

was reviewed

by

S.N.

Eisenstadt

in

the

Journal

of

Asian

Studies,

XVII,

May

1959,

435-46;

but

it

took six

years

for Annales to

publish

in its

XIX,

May-June

1964

(531-49)

issue;

a

very

pungent

review

by

Pierre

Vidal-Naquet,

'Histoire

et

ideologie;

Karl

Wittfogel

et le

concept

de

"Mode

de

production"

asiatique.'

11. Roland Mousnier, the Grand Old Man of what is considered classical French

historiography,

is

none

the

less

a

daring

innovator with his

theory

of 'Order

Society'

as

an

explanation

of

West-European

pre-industrial

societies. Its most

striking

and

succinct

presentation

is

found

in Les

hierarchies sociales de 1450

d

nos

jours

(Paris

1969),

translated

by

Peter Evans under the title Social Hierarchies

-

1450

to

the

pre-

sent,

(London);

other works

by

R. Mousnier are La

venalite

des

offices

sous

Henri

IV et

Louis

XIII

(Paris

1972);

L'assassinat d'Henri

IV,

(Paris

1964);

Fureurs

Paysannes:

les

paysans

dans

les

revoltes

du XVIIe

siecles

(Paris

1967),

translated

by

Brian

Pearle as

Peasant

uprisings

in

the

Seventeenth

century:

France,

Russia,

China

(New

York

1970);

La

plume,

lafaucille

et le

marteau

(Paris

1970);

Le

Conseil

du

roi

de Louis XII d la Revolution (Paris 1970); Les Institutions de la France sous la

monarchie

absolue,

1598-1789,

(Paris 1975).

12.

Stoianovich,

op.

cit.,

116

and

n.33.

13.

Jacques

Le Goff is the

author of Les

Intellectuels

au

Moyen

Age (Paris

1957);

La

Civilisation de

I'Occident

medieval

(Paris

1967);

Marchands

et

banquiers

du

Moyen

Age (Paris

1972)

among

others.

14.

Bernard Guenee

published

Tribunaux

et

gens

de

justice

dans le

baillage

de

Senlis

a

la

fin

du

Moyen-Age

(vers

1380-vers

1550) (Paris 1963);

L

'Occident au

XIVe

et XVe

siecles: les

Etats

(Paris

1971).

15.

In

Voprosy

Istorii

(No

7)

Moscow

1962,

185-91.

16. G.G. Diligenskij's article was

published

in a French translation in

Annales

1963,

103-13.

17.

Geoffrey

Parker,

'Braudel's

Mediterranean: the

Making

and the

Marketing

of a

Masterpiece'

in

History, 1974,

238-93.

18. J.H.

Hexter,

'Fernand Braudel and

the

"Monde

Braudellien'"

in

Journal

of

Modern

History,

Vol.

44,

December

1972,

480-539.

19.

H.R.

Trevor-Roper,

'Fernand

Braudel,

the

Annales

and

the

Mediterranean'

in

Journal

of

Modern

History,

Vol.

44,

December

1972,

468-79.

20.

Jean

Berenger,

'Pour

une

enquete

europ&enne:

e

probleme

du

ministeriat au

XVIIle siecle' in

Annales

XXIX

(1974),

166-92.

21. Daniel Dessert et Jean-Louis Journet, 'Le lobby Colbert, un royaume ou

une

affaire de

famille'

in

Annales XXX

(1975)

1303-36.

22.

Dominique

Boutet,

'La

politique

et

1'histoire dans

les chansons

de

geste'

in

Annales XXXI

(1976),

1119-29.

12



14/14

Harsgor:

Total

History:

The Annales

School

23.

Marc

Ferro,

'La naissance du

systeme bureaucratique

en URSS' in

Annales

XXXI (1976) 243-67.

24. The shrewd observer

alluded to was

Jesus

of

Nazareth

who

expressed

himself

on the

subject

in the

following

terms:

'For what

is a man

profited,

if he

shall

gain

the whole

world,

and lose his own soul?

Or what

shall a man

give

in

exchange

for his

soul?',

Matthew,

XVI,

26. What

is the historian

profited,

if what

he writes

is

no

longer history?

25. Time 23

May

1977.

Michael

Harsgor

is

Professor of

Early

Modern

History

at

the

University of Tel Aviv.

PRIN ETON

Soldiers

of

Destruction

The

SS

Death's Head

Division,

1933-1945

CHARLES

W.

SYDNOR,

JR.

Drawing

xtensively

upon

a wide

variety

of

SS

manuscript

ources and

captured

German

Army

materials,

Charles

Sydnor

relates the

political

and

military

xperience

of the

SS

Totenkopfdivision

o the

institutional

development

of the

SS

and the

ideological objectives

of

Nazi

Ger-

many.

Illus.*

$22.50

The

German

Werkbund

The

Politics

of

Reform n

the

Applied

Arts

JOAN

CAMPBELL

Campbell

races

the

history

of

one

of

Germany's

oremost

cultural r-

ganizations

rom ts

founding

n

1907

to

1934,

when it

was

absorbed nto

the

bureaucracy

of

the

NationalSocialist

State.

Illus.

*

$20.00

Princeton

University

Press

Princeton,NewJersey 08540

13

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