FERNAND BRAUDEL AND GLOBAL HISTORY1 The Life and the Man Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) was one of the great historians of the twentieth century. He published his great work on The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World of Philip II in 1949. His other major later work, the three volumes of Civilization and Capitalism, was published in 1979.
Author : Fernand Braudel
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By examining in detail the material life of pre-industrial peoples around the world, Fernand Braudel significantly changed the way historians view their subject. Originally published in the early 1980s, Civilization traces the social and economic history of the world from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, although his primary focus is Europe. Braudel skims over politics, wars, etc., in favor of examining life at the grass roots: food, drink, clothing, housing, town markets, money, credit, technology, the growth of towns and cities, and more. Volume I describes food and drink, dress and housing, demography and family structure, energy and technology, money and credit, and the growth of towns.ISBN : 0520081161
Genre : Business & Economics
File Size : 39.32 MB
Format : PDF, Docs
Download : 507
Read : 470
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fernand Braudel (August 24, 1902 – November 27, 1985), was the foremost French historian of the postwar era, and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three great projects, each representing 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). His reputation stems in part from his writings, but even more from his success in making the Annales School the most important engine of historical research in France and much of the world after 1950. As the dominant leader of the Annales School of historiography in the 1950s and 1960s, he exerted enormous influence on historical writing in France and other countries.
Braudel has been considered one of the greatest of those modern historians who have emphasised the role of large scale socio-economic factors in the making and telling of history.[1] He can also be considered as one of the precursors of World Systems Theory.
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Life
Braudel was born in Luméville-en-Ornois (as of 1973, merged with and part of Gondrecourt-le-Château), in the département of the Meuse, France, where he also lived with his paternal grandmother for a long time. His father, who was a natural mathematician, aided him in his studies. Braudel also studied a good deal of Latin and a little Greek. He loved history and wrote poetry. Braudel wanted to be a doctor, but his father opposed this idea. At the age of 20, he became an agrégé in history. While teaching at a secondary school in Algeria, 1923–32, he became fascinated by the Mediterranean Sea and everything about it. From 1932 to 1935 he taught in the Paris lycées of Pasteur, Condorcet, and Henry IV. He met Lucien Febvre, the co-founder of the influential Annales journal, who was to have a great influence on his work.
Brazil
By 1900 the French solidified their cultural dominance in Brazil through the establishment of the Brazilian Academy of Fine Arts. São Paulo 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 formation of the new University of São Paulo. Braudel later said that the time in Brazil was the 'greatest period of his life.'[2] He returned to Paris in 1937 and in 1939, he joined the army but was captured in 1940 and became a prisoner of war in a camp near Lübeck in Germany, where, working from memory, he put together his great work La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéen a l'époque de Philippe II (The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II). Part of his motivation for writing the book, he said, was that, as a 'Northerner,' he had come to love the Mediterranean. After the war, he worked with Febvre in a new college, founded separately from the Sorbonne, dedicated to social and economic history.
Braudel had already started archival research on his doctorate on the Mediterranean when he fell under the influence of the Annales School around 1938. Also around this time he entered the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes as an instructor in history. He worked with Lucien Febvre, who would later read the early versions of Braudel's magnum opus and provide him with editorial advice. At the outbreak of war in 1939, he was called up and subsequently taken prisoner by the Germans, 1940–45. While a prisoner of war Braudel was without access to his books or notes; he relied on his prodigious memory to contemplate and draft his work.
In 1949 he was elected to the Collège de France upon Lucien Febvre’s retirement. In 1947, with Febvre and Charles Morazé, Braudel founded the famous Sixième Section for ‘Economic and social sciences’ at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. He retired in 1968, and in 1983 was elected to the Académie française.
In 1962, he wrote A History of Civilizations as the basis for a history course, but its rejection of the traditional event-based narrative was too radical for the French ministry of education, which rejected it [3]
Besides La Méditerranée, his most famous work is the three-volume Civilisation Matérielle, Economie et Capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe (Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800), which first appeared in 1979. [Note: Braudel published the first volume of Civilization and Capitalism in 1967, and it was translated as Capitalism and Material Life, 1400–1800 in 1973.][4] The entire, three-volume work is a broad-scaled history of the pre-industrial modern world, presented in the minute detail demanded by the school called cliometrics focusing on how people made economies work. Like all his major works, it mixes traditional economic material with a thick description of the social impact of economic events on various facets of everyday life such as food, fashion, and social customs.
Braudel claimed that there are long-term cycles in the capitalist economy which developed in Europe in the 12th century. Cities, and later nation-states, follow each other subsequently as centers of these cycles. Venice and Genoa in 13th to 15th century (1250–1510), Antwerp in 16th (1500–1569), Amsterdam in 16th to 18th (1570–1733), London and England in 18th and 19th (1733–1896). He used the word 'structures' to denote a variety of organized behaviours, attitudes, and conventions, as well as literal structures and infrastructures. He argued that structures that were built up in Europe during the Middle Ages contributed to the successes of present-day European-based cultures. He attributes much of this to the long-standing independence of city-states, which, though later subjected by larger geographic states, were not always completely suppressed—probably for reasons of utility.
One feature of Braudel's work is his compassion for the suffering of marginal people.[5] He articulates the obvious: that most surviving historical sources come from the wealthy (or at least literate) classes — those who are either rich or aspire to be. He emphasizes the importance of the ephemeral lives of slaves, serfs, peasants, and the urban poor, demonstrating their contributions to the wealth and power of their respective masters and societies. Indeed, he appears to think that these people form the real material of civilization. His work is often illustrated with contemporary depictions of daily life, rarely with pictures of noblemen or kings.
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. The Mediterranean legacy in Europe included cultivated crops and its associated consumption habits, monotheistic religion, urbanism, the language, laws, and pretensions of the state as mental and cultural tools, the prestige of the written word, and the instruments of chronology. The culture ceased to be dominant in the 15th or 16th century, but the new Atlantic culture absorbed much of it and transmitted its elements to Siberia, the Americas, and the Antipodes.[citation needed]
For Braudel there is no single Mediterranean sea. There are many seas—indeed a 'vast, complex expanse' in which men operate. Life is conducted on the Mediterranean: people travel, fish, fight wars, and drown in its various incarnations. And the sea articulates with the plains and islands. Life on the plains is diverse and complex; the poorer south is affected by religious diversity (Catholicism and Islam), as well as by intrusions – both cultural and economic – from the wealthier north. In other words the Mediterranean cannot be understood independently from what is exterior to it. Any rigid adherence to boundaries is a way of falsifying the situation.
The first level of time, geographical time, is that of the environment, with its slow, almost imperceptible change, its repetition and cycles. Change may be slow, but it is irresistible. The second level of time comprises social and cultural history, with social groupings, empires and civilizations. Change at this level is much more rapid than that of the environment; he looks at two or three centuries in order to spot a particular pattern, such as the rise and fall of various aristocracies. The third level of time is that of events (histoire événementielle). This is the history of individuals with names. This, for Braudel, is the time of surfaces and deceptive effects. It is the time of the 'courte durée' proper and it is exemplified by Part 3 of The Mediterranean which treats of 'events, politics and people.'
![Material Material](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125868266/982395613.jpg)
Braudel's Mediterranean is a nexus of seas, but just as important, it is also the desert and the mountains. The desert creates a nomadic form of social organization where the whole community moves; mountain life is sedentary. Transhumance is also a factor—that is, the movement from the mountain to the plain, or vice versa in a given season.
Braudel's vast panoramic view used insights 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 dramatically 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.[6] In 1962 Braudel and Gaston Berger used the Ford Foundation grant and government funds to create a new independent foundation, the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH), which Braudel directed from 1970 until his death. It was housed in the building called 'Maison des Sciences de l'Homme'. FMSH focused its activities on international networking in order to disseminate the Annales approach to Europe and the world. After a sort of palace coup in 1968 he had to share power, and in 1972 he gave up all editorial responsibility on the journal (although his name remained on the masthead).
Historiography
According to Braudel, prior to the Annales approach the writing of history was focused on the courte durée (short span), or on what is known as histoire événementielle (a history of events). Political and diplomatic history is a prime example of histoire événementielle, which he rejected as too limited.
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.[7] The Annales historians, after living through two world wars and massive political upheavals in France, were deeply uncomfortable with the notion that multiple ruptures and discontinuities created history. They preferred to stress inertia and the longue durée, i.e., the continuities of the deepest structures of society were central to history. Upheavals in institutions or the superstructure of social life were of little significance, for history, they argued, 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.[8] A proponent of historical materialism, Braudel rejected Marxist materialism, stressing the equal importance of infrastructure and superstructure, both of which reflected enduring social, economic, and cultural realities. Braudel's structures, both mental and environmental, determine the 'long-term' course of events by constraining actions on, and by, humans over a duration long enough that they are beyond the consciousness of the actors involved.
Capitalism
Braudel returned to the economic themes that interested the Annales historians of the 1930s but had since been neglected. In his three-volume study, Civilisation Matérielle, Economie, et Capitalisme (1979) (Capitalism and Material Life), he takes a sweeping survey of preindustrial capitalism the world over. There is little original research in the survey; rather, it is a synthesis of a large body of work by many scholars, some of it outdated. Braudel compiles descriptive detail rather than building theoretical constructs. He avoids all economic theory, and uses statistical data as an illustrative rather than an analytic tool.
Braudel argued that capitalists have typically been monopolists, and not, as is usually assumed, entrepreneurs operating in competitive markets. He argued that capitalists did not specialize and did not use free markets. He thus diverged from both liberal (Adam Smith) and Marxian interpretations. In Braudel's view, under capitalism, the state has served as a guarantor of monopolists rather than as the protector of competition usually portrayed. He asserts that capitalists have had power and cunning on their side as they have arrayed themselves against the majority of the population.[9]
Recognition
SUNY Binghamton in New York has a Fernand Braudel Center, and there is an Instituto Fernand Braudel de Economia Mundial in São Paulo, Brazil.
Works
- La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéen a l'époque de Philippe II 3 vols. (Originally appeared in 1949; revised several times)
- * La part du milieu (vol. 1) ISBN 2-253-06168-9
- * Destins collectifs et mouvements d'ensemble (vol. 2) ISBN 2-253-06169-7
- * Les événements, la politique et les hommes (vol. 3) ISBN 2-253-06170-0
- Ecrits sur l'Histoire (1969) ISBN 2-08-081023-5
- Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe siècle
- * Les structures du quotidien (vol. 1, 1967) ISBN 2-253-06455-6
- * Les jeux de l'échange (vol. 2, 1979) ISBN 2-253-06456-4
- * Le temps du monde (vol. 3, 1979) ISBN 2-253-06457-2
- Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries, 3 vols. (1979) English translation by Siân Reynolds
- * The Structures of Everyday Life (vol.1) ISBN 0-06-014845-2
- * The Wheels of Commerce (vol. 2) ISBN 0-06-015091-2
- * The Perspective of the World (vol. 3) ISBN 0-06-015317-2
- On History (1980), English translation of Ecrits sur l'Histoire by Siân Reynolds
- La Dynamique du Capitalisme (1985) ISBN 2-08-081192-4
- The Identity of France (1986)
- Ecrits sur l'Histoire II (1990) ISBN 2-08-081304-8
- Out of Italy, 1450–1650 (1991)
- A History of Civilizations (1995)
- Les mémoires de la Méditerranée (1998)
- The Mediterranean in the Ancient World (UK) and Memories of the Mediterranean (USA): (2001) English translation of Les mémoires de la Méditerranée by Siân Reynolds
- Personal Testimony Journal of Modern History, vol. 44, no. 4. (December 1972)
References
- 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)
- Pierre Daix, Braudel, (Paris: Flammarion, 1995)
- Dosse, Francois. New History in France: The Triumph of the Annales, (1994, first French edition, 1987) excerpt and text search
- Giuliana Gemelli, Fernand Braudel (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1995)
- 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
- Hunt, Lynn. 'French History in the Last Twenty Years: the Rise and Fall of the Annales Paradigm.' Journal of Contemporary History 1986 21(2): 209–224. Issn: 0022-0094 Fulltext: 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
- Kinser, Samuel. 'Annaliste Paradigm? The Geo-historical Structuralism of Fernand Braudel.' American Historical Review 1981 86(1): 63–105. Issn: 0002-8762 Fulltext: in Jstor
- Lai, Cheng-chung. 'Braudel's Concepts and Methodology Reconsidered.' European Legacy 2000 5(1): 65–86. Issn: 1084-8770 Fulltext: PDF document
- Lai, Cheng-chung. Braudel's Historiography Reconsidered, Maryland: University Press of America, 2004. Book PDF file
- Moon, David. 'Fernand Braudel and the Annales School' online edition
- Santamaria, Ulysses, and Bailey, Anne M. 'A Note on Braudel's Structure as Duration.' History and Theory 1984 23(1): 78–83. Issn: 0018-2656 Fulltext: in Jstor
- Stoianovich, Traian. French Historical Method: The Annales Paradigm, (1976)
- Wallerstein, Immanuel. 'Time and Duration: The Unexcluded Middle' (1997) online version
Notes
- ^ i.e. Fernand Braudel, 'The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996)
- ^ Thomas E. Skidmore, 'Levi-Strauss, Braudel and Brazil: a Case of Mutual Influence.' Bulletin of Latin American Research 2003 22(3): 340–349. Issn: 0261-3050 Fulltext: Ebsco
- ^ Richard Mayne, 'Translator's Introduction' in Fernand Braudel, 'A History of Civilization,' (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), pp. xxvi–xxvii.
- ^ Review Essay by Alan Heston, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Fernand Braudel's Civilization and Capitalism,EH.net,http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/heston
- ^ Fernand Braudel, A History of Civilizations, translated by Richard Mayne (New York: Penguin Books, 1993).
- ^ He received an additional $1 million from the Ford Foundation in 1960. Francis X. Sutton, 'The Ford Foundation's Transatlantic Role and Purposes, 1951–81.' Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 2001 24(1): 77–104. Issn: 0147-9032
- ^ See Wallerstein, 'Time and Duration' (1997)
- ^ Olivia Harris, 'Braudel: Historical Time and the Horror of Discontinuity.' History Workshop Journal (2004) (57): 161–174. Issn: 1363-3554 Fulltext: OUP
- ^Wallerstein, Immanuel (1991), 'Braudel on Capitalism, or Everything Upside Down', Journal of Modern History63 (2): 354–361, doi:10.2307/2938489, ISSN0022-2801.
External links
- Fernand Braudel at Find a Grave
Preceded by André Chamson | Seat 15 Académie française 1984–1985 | Succeeded by Jacques Laurent |
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