French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Burguière, L'École des Annales. Une histoire intellectuelle
History, Politics and Society
André BURGUIÈRE
L'École des Annales. Une histoire intellectuelle
Editions Odile Jacob, coll. "histoire", 2006, 368 p.
- ISBN: 2-7381-1823-2
- ISBN 13 (EAN): 9782738118233
- 29.90 €
Back cover:
From Marc Bloch to Emmanuel Leroy-Ladurie and Jacques Le Goff, from Lucien Febvre to Philippe Ariès and Michel Foucault, and from Fernand Braudel to Ernest Labrousse, the Annales school profoundly reshaped French and international historiography. Rather than merely chronicling a historical period, a single event, the military exploits of a king or emperor, or the fortunes and misfortunes of a nation, the Annales school set out to investigate underlying problems. Was it possible to be an unbeliever in Rabelais's time? Why did France never become the world's leading economic power? In this book, André Burguière demonstrates how this intellectual movement grew out of the study of mentalities. Encompassing emotional and cognitive structures, unconscious representations and images, the study of mentalities allows us to reconstruct vanished societies through the very categories they used to understand themselves. History as the thought of others. André Burguière, Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, is an editorial board member of the Annales.
Reviews and mentions:
Emerging in the early twentieth century and famously associated with the journal Annales, this intellectual movement revolutionized historical research by shifting focus away from traditional political narratives and military chronicles. Instead, scholars such as Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, and Fernand Braudel championed total history, examining long-term economic structures, geography, and collective mentalities. By integrating methods from sociology, economics, and geography, the school redefined how scholars analyze the past, transforming the study of societies and their underlying belief systems on a global scale.
This volume serves as an essential resource for students of historiography, researchers in the humanities, and readers interested in the evolution of modern historical thought. André Burguière places key figures and debates in their proper intellectual context, addressing how historians reconstruct vanished mental frameworks and collective emotions. The book helps readers understand the origins of interdisciplinary research and the ongoing legacy of French historical scholarship, making it particularly useful for those exploring the intersections of history, anthropology, and culture.
http://www.scienceshumaines.com/l-ecole-des-annales_fr_15302.html