French historical method

the long version

The famed Annales "school" has had a formidable and enduring influence upon the historians of the Western world. This book is both a history of the school and an analysis of its entire network of historical and methodological conceptions. The school derived its name from a distinguished French journal founded in 1929 by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch. Mr. Stoianovich traces the ideas of its founders, of their successors, and of the historians who were inspired by their methods. The Annales school's view of history is uniquely its own, and Stoianovich's concise and challenging account of the development and ramifications of that view is a valuable contribution to the history of ideas. In a revealing Foreword, written with brilliance and exceptional grace, Fernand Braudel engages the author in friendly debate over the evolution of the Annales model of history. While they may differ on nuances, Braudel and Stoianovich agree that whatever direction historical scholarship may take in France, scholars throughout the world will continue to make use of the flexible, open-ended historiographical tool that the Annales model provides. - Jacket flap.