Annales School

The Annales school is the most important, several generations comprehensive group of French historians in the 20th century. She established a new methodology and practice in the discipline of history (nouvelle histoire ). Its three main innovations were the turning to the economy and society, the development of quantifiable material and a focus on long-term developments. Of fundamental importance was the methodological approach of Karl Lamprecht for them. The name derives from its journalistic mouthpiece, which was founded by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre 1929 historical scientific journal Annales d' histoire économique et sociale ( the magazine is - after a few name changes -. Till today and since 1994 Annales called Histoire Sciences sociales. ).

Creation, development

At the turn of the 19th to the 20th century French historian of representatives from neighboring disciplines saw attacked massively. Man held for history obsolete, because they would only describe exemplary individual cases and not theory is capable (see also: Historicism ). In the future, they would at most can provide examples of sociologists.

At the same time, the French geographer Paul Vidal de la Blache described the influence of the environment on the development of people, and " poached " so also in the territory of the historian.

Historians Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre was able then to make these disciplines can be used for the story. In her time at the University of Strasbourg in the 1920s, they cooperated closely with sociologists and geographers, and took over from these methods in the study of history. Eventually they founded in 1929 after the model of existing since 1903 the German magazine " quarterly magazine for social and economic history," the " Annales ".

After the Second World War, this school received an institutional framework in 1947 founded the 6th Section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études (since 1975 École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales ) in Paris. In the following years it became the most influential flow into the French history of science and developed great international impact. More recently, the Annales research turned increasingly to the mentalities. Recently moved back biographies of individuals into view (Jacques Le Goff ), thus the typical of the Annales - move away from the individual case - today is heavily blurred.

In Germany, the Annales school was initially little attention, enhanced reception began only in the 1970s.

The historiography of the Annales school

History in terms of the Annales means today Methods diversity and openness to new ideas, which is why it is difficult to speak of a special Annales historiography.

But the main focus is the structure Annales history: over the event include the impersonal forces that lead to the events. The most it went Fernand Braudel, who examined the importance of " quasi immobile " Earth's history to the lives of people. He called this long cycles longue durée, the long duration, and described in his major work "The Mediterranean " the influence of climate and landforms on people and society. Mental history and all kinds of quantitative history were also introduced by the Annales school in the French historians.

The Annales school had their problems also open up new sources again and again - so Annales historians have first systematic wills, marriage certificates and inspection records examined to find out about the statistics more about the lives of ordinary people. Philippe Ariès used portraits to examine the position of children in society, and also with the archeology arose repeatedly points of contact.

The French medieval archeology benefited in its early phase thereof, as the interest esp. also the history of the rural area was - next to Le Roy Ladurie Bloch and dealt with it, for example, Georges Duby.

The Annales school influenced many European and non- European researchers of the various humanities disciplines and schools, for example, the German social history or the American world system theory, world history and environmental history.

Criticism

The turning away from event history, politics, diplomacy and military history, as they were particularly represented in Germany is criticized by some historians: the Annales school removed itself sometimes too far from the established facts, argue anachronistic, go too far away from the from what was expected on the basis of their theories and negligible political factors too. This fundamental methodological dissent could not yet be solved.

Representatives of the Annales school

Historism Human science Daniel Roche (historian) People's history Peter Burke (historian) Gerhard Ritter Heinz-Gerhard Haupt Historische Zeitschrift Integrated Authority File
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