Fernand Braudel

Fernand Braudel (1902-1985), was the foremost French historian of the postwar era, and a leader of the Annales School.

Braudel fell under the influence of the Annales School in the late 1930s, when began working with Lucien Febvre, who would later read the early versions of Braudel's magnum opus and provide him with editorial advice. Braudel was imprisoned for six years during the war, without access to his books or notes; he relied on his prodigious memory to contemplate and draft his work. He organized his scholarship around three great projects, each worth several decades of intense study: "The Mediterranean" (1923-49, then 1949-66), "Civilization and Capitalism" (1955-79), and the unfinished, "Identity of France" (1970-85).

Brazil

By 1900 the French solidified their cultural dominance in Brazil through the establishment of the Brazilian Academy of Fine Arts. Brazil still lacked a university, however, and in 1934 Francophile Julio de Mesquita Filho invited anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss and Braudel to help establish one. The result was the University of São Paulo.

La Méditerranée

His first book, La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéen à l'Epoque de Philippe II (1949) (The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II) was his most influential. This vast panoramic view used ideas from other social sciences, employed the concept of the longue durée, and downplayed the importance of specific events. It was widely admired, but most historians did not try to replicate it and instead focused on their specialized monographs. The book dramaticaly raised the worldwide profile of the Annales School.

Annales School

Braudel became the leader of the second generation of Annales historians after 1945. He obtained funding from the Rockefeller Foundation in New York and founded the 6th Section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, which was devoted to the study of history and the social sciences.

His followers admired his use of the longue durée approach to stress slow, and often imperceptible effects of space, climate and technology on the actions of human beings in the past. The Annales historians, after living through two world wars and incedible political upheavals in France, were deeply uncomfortable with the notion of multiple ruptures and discontinuities created history. They preferred to stress inertia and the longue durée. That is, the continuities of the deepest structures were central to history, beside which upheavals in institutions or the superstructure of social life were of little significance, for history lies beyond the reach of conscious actors, especially the will of revolutionaries. They rejected the Marxist idea that history should be used as a tool to foment and foster revolutions.

Bibliography

• Aurell, Jaume. "Autobiographical Texts as Historiographical Sources: Rereading Fernand Braudel and Annie Kriegel." Biography 2006 29(3): 425-445. Issn: 0162-4962 Fulltext: Project Muse
• Burke, Peter. The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School 1929-89, (1990), excerpt and text search
• Carrard, Philippe. "Figuring France: The Numbers and Tropes of Fernand Braudel," Diacritics, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 2-19 in JSTOR
• Carrard, Philippe. Poetics of the New History: French Historical Discourse from Braudel to Chartier, (1992)
• Dosse, Francois. New History in France: The Triumph of the Annales, (1994, first French edition, 1987) excerpt and text search
• Harris, Olivia. "Braudel: Historical Time and the Horror of Discontinuity." History Workshop Journal 2004 (57): 161-174. Issn: 1363-3554 Fulltext: OUP
• Hexter, J. H. "Fernand Braudel and the Monde Braudellien," Journal of Modern History, 1972, vol. 44, pp. 480-539 in JSTOR
• Hufton, Olwen. "Fernand Braudel", Past and Present, No. 112. (Aug., 1986), pp. 208–213. in JSTOR
• Kaplan, Steven Laurence. "Long-Run Lamentations: Braudel on France," The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 63, No. 2, A Special Issue on Modern France. (Jun., 1991), pp. 341-353. in JSTOR
• Lai, Cheng-chung. "Braudel's Concepts and Methodology Reconsidered." European Legacy 2000 5(1): 65-86. Issn: 1084-8770 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Moon, David. "Fernand Braudel and the Annales School" online edition
• Stoianovich, Traian. French Historical Method: The Annales Paradigm, (1976)

Books by Braudel

• Braudel, Fernand. "Personal Testimony." Journal of Modern History 1972 44(4): 448-467. Issn: 0022-2801 Fulltext: Jstor
• Braudel, Fernand. On History, (1980, first French edition 1969). excerpt and text search
• Braudel, Fernand. Autour de la Mediterranée (1996)
• Braudel, Fernand. Les Ambitions de l'Histoire (1997)