Annales School

The Annales School is a style of historiography developed by French historians in the 20th century. The emphasis was on social history, and very-long-term trends. Little attention was paid to political, diplomatic or military histry. Prominent leaders include Marc Bloch (1886-1944), Fernand Braudel, Georges Duby, Lucien Febvre, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Jacques Le Goff. The main outlet was the journal, Annales d'Histoire Economique et Sociale, which insisted on the importance of taking all levels of society into consideration and emphasized the collective nature of mentalities. It continues today as Annales: Histoire, Sciences Social.

Bloch

Marc Bloch (1886-1944) was the cofounder of the Annales school, as a quintessential modernist. Killed by the Gestapo in 1944, he became a national martyr. His ideas were incorporated by the second-generation Annalistes, led by Fernand Braudel. Bloch's revolutionary charting of mentalities at the same time period as the psychological novel came of age is an oft-overlooked fact of his scholarship and one that is critical to an understanding of his contribution to 20th-century methodological developments. Stirling (2007) examines this essentially stylistic trait alongside Bloch's peculiarly quixotic idealism, which tempered and sometimes compromised his work through his hope for a truly cooperative model of historical inquiry. While humanizing and questioning him, Stirling gives credit to Bloch for helping to break through the monotonous methodological alternance between positivism and narrative history, creating a new, synthetic version of the historical practice that has since become so ingrained in the discipline that it is typically overlooked.

Bibliography

• Stirling, Katherine. "Rereading Marc Bloch: the Life and Works of a Visionary Modernist." History Compass 2007 5(world): 525-538. Issn: 1478-0542 Fulltext: History Compass