What were the main achievements of the Annales School?
The Annales School of History is regarded by many as the most influential school of history in the 20th century[1] , but to call the Annales a school can be somewhat of a misnomer, as Robert Forster states, the Annales were not a true school in the sense of a group working to one methodology and towards a shared goal but rather an association of researching scholars who were in communication, had some shared ideas and goals for the study of history.[2] The purpose of this little essay is to assess the Annales. To identify the aims and achievements of those scholars who worked under the banner, both immediate and on our study of history as a whole. Of course any investigation of the Annales must begin with an exploration of the nature of the Annales school, its driving forces, its proponents and raison d'être.
The first rumblings of an idea that would become the Annales began in 1929, when a new journal entered the not unpopulated world of academic journals. Started by two gifted historians from Strasbourg University, Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch, what immediately set the Annales apart is evident in the name of the journal itself, Annales d'Histoire économique et sociale (The Annals of Economic and Social history), this was a deliberate statement of intent. Where historical study had been almost exclusively concerned with the great cause and effects, leaders and events of traditional history, Febvre and Bloch wanted to revise history and moreover it's study, as Anna Green and Kathleen Troup put it, rejecting 'the near-monopoly of French history by political and diplomatic topics.'[3] This was more than a impetuous upsetting of the apple-cart by men out to make their name. Febvre and Bloch were attempting nothing short of academic revolution. Jeremy Black and Donald MacRaild allude to this in their Studying History 2nd Edition, where they highlight that Febvre and Bloch attempted to achieve a 'new...