Escritos sobre historia

by Fernand Braudel

The first English translation of Ecrits sur l'histoire—a collection of essays written over a twenty-year period following publication of Braudel's masterwork, La, Méditerranée—On History sets forth Braudel's reflections on the intellectual framework of his historical studies. Braudel calls on the historian to penetrate beneath the surface of political events to uncover and measure the forces shaping collective existence. Cycles of production, wages and prices, grids of communication and trade, fluctuations and climate, demographic trends, popular beliefs—all of these phenomena are proper subjects of the historian's investigations. It is only through study of the longue durée, Braudel argues, that one can discern structure, the supports and obstacles, the limits and his experience cannot escape.

"The great French historian Fernand Braudel has done what only giants can: he has made Western man confront the problem of time—individual time, historical time, relative time, real time. . . . Braudel, more than any other historian, has wrestled with man's conception of time over time. . . What a magnificent fight he has fought."—Virginia Quarterly Review

Genres: History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, World History, Essays, France, Grad School

267 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Fernand Paul Achille Braudel was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects: 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 the modern historians who have emphasized the role of large-scale socioeconomic factors in the making and writing of history. He can also be considered as one of the precursors of world-systems theory.

Reviews

[Tim Chamberlain · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm giving this two stars, not because it's a bad book - it's actually very good and engagingly written - but because it's mostly a collection of book reviews rather than an intentional work of historiographical exposition. The exegesis in these reviews does highlight Braudel's ideas on historiography and the 'longue duree' but because the pieces it contains are essentially book reviews some pieces are more engaging than others, plus it means there's a lot of overlap and repetition - one of the pieces refers to a series of graphs and charts which have not been reproduced in this book, an endnote tells you to refer to the original source publication for these which seems a bit odd and rather defeats the idea of collecting these essays/reviews together in book form so that they are more easily accessible. As Braudel points out in the introduction it wasn't him who collected the pieces, so it's a kind of incidental rather than unified treatise - something to dip into rather than read from cover to cover.

[Justinian Guan · Rating 4 out of 5]

(following a freak goodreads accident my previous review has somehow been wiped, so I'm rewriting this for my own future self's sake.)

the time in which Fernand Braudel wrote many of the essays that this book collects is one that seems remarkably different from ours, today. as Braudel's subject matters make clear, history as an enterprise was still beginning to reinvent itself (from Rankean Eden had history in the 20th century fallen) and the adjacent social sciences - geography, economics, demography, political science - were trying still to figure themselves out. in the midst of this nebula, Braudel is striking as one of those thinkers who believed in the possibility and necessity of uniting the social sciences - a goal we have hardly reached, if we are not moving further away from it today.

Braudel writes about this belief with fervour, as he does about his other convictions: chiefly, the primacy of the longue durée and the utility of socioscientific method in historical study. this fervour - across the many essays which, in all fairness, Braudel had never intended to be compiled - does cross into a nagging repetition. that made a few of the essays, especially once one has gotten used to Braudel's programme, fairly tough going, with the arrival of the footnotes and references at the end of each chapter signalling joyful relief.

but looking at the text in balance, Braudel's collection is still one that is satisfying. that's not really a matter of his writing (although the French is brilliantly and very idiomatically translated - rare!) or his content, but at the end of the day it's the vivacious, rich character lying behind the text that makes the reading worth it.

for, it is clear, Braudel is not just a great thinker. a great human he is too; respectful of his colleagues, consistently modest, and constantly on the lookout for new ideas from other fields and other traditions. and it's that humility and integrity that stays with you a few days after finishing the text; it is what we could probably all learn from Braudel.

[Rosewater Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Возможно (акцент на открывающейся возможности), берясь за рецензию на книгу признанного в широких (местами) и узких (чаще - мнящих себя узкими) кругах специалиста в любой (гуманитарной) дисциплине, следовало бы досконально изучить, последователем какого направления специалист выступает (или - к какому он относим критикой) и что из себя представляет направление (l'orientation): основные принципы, общие и разграничивающие сторонников суждения, роль в историческом развитии дисциплины, вклад в настоящее состояние, прочее.
Естественно, делать мне было больше нечего, как листать Annales, сидя в научно-популярной комнатке для раздумий (р-раз и раздумала!), когда для этого вполне достанет Дюма (и отца и сына и Духа святого)!
Да, меня заинтересовал Марк Блок - но благодаря Полю Вейну; Люсьен же Февр ("же" не входит в оригинальное имя) меня заинтересовать не смог, не смотря на регулярность упоминания его в (каждом?) эссе данного сборника.
Не надо быть хорошим поэтом, чтобы прийти на странице эдак 111 (никакой нумерологии!) "Очерков" к заключению, что Бродель - старательно плохой поэт. Страницами десятью ранее ты пытаешься ещё списать образующиеся на языке читателя заусеницы и мозоли на трудности перевода (обладающей, без сомнения, орлиной доблестью мадам Орловой), однако затем что-то преломляется во время чтения - придурковатый лучик разума падает на залапанный шрифт под таким (структурным) углом, что весь текст приобретает, наконец, характер автора. Тогда-то и проступает в манерах его нечто с кислинкой, отдающей наивной радужностью продуктов, выносимых на задний двор супермаркета, согревающих кардио и ливерные области неимущих (или имущих, но бессильных перед фактом обладания).
..и всё же местами ясноглаголящая переводчица, к объяснимому сожалению, начинает "объясняться яснее".
А "старательно плохой поэт", если кто не догадался, чересчур усердно восхваляет поэтичность коллег и оппонентов перед тем, как взяться за критику, прибегая к двумя абзацами ранее раскритикованной, как суррогатный элемент для исторической верстки, поэтике.
"Становится ли статист программистом или и в программе статист занят статистикой, не смысля ничего вне охвата программ статистического учёта? Способен ли статист создать программу или же только воспользоваться поставляемым ему софтом, не проявляя интереса к специфике софта, разработчиков и поставщиков? На каком этапе статистика развивается в историю, если они способны двигаться одна за другой или пересекаться? Если статистика - программна, программна ли история? Какой прок учёта запрограммированных данных, если сама уже программа выполняет это задним числом?" - первые 50 или 70 страниц (и послеобеденный час) заставили меня задаться этаким кавардаком. Насколько продуктивными будут данные на оный специалистами или просто ценителями "Анналов" ответы - оставляю на рассуждение случайного комментатора.
Бродель пишет о необходимости упорядочивания событий и фрагментов, прежде чем говорить о "реальности"; однако, на мой взгляд, реальность сама по себе подлежала упорядочиванию ещё до "Анналов", до Мишле, до Фомы, до Фалеса. По крайней мере, реальность, не нуждавшаяся в акциденции (юргенсе) "французскости". Иначе говоря, "место Франции" не определяется длительностью присутствия и творчества Набокова, Пикассо или Зеленского в Париже. Вызваны ли эти слова типичной "ревностью предков", оставляю на рассуждение психоаналитиков.
Лишним будет уточнение, что мой взгляд не может претендовать на обзор, превосходивший бы хоть в малости броделевский. И всё-таки: историк, дающий определение реальности - это даже не социолог, но терапевт.
Что касается разграничения "культуры" и "цивилизации", на данный (в ожидании трагикомедии заваривающегося и одновременно остывающего чая) момент необходимого (или оправданного). Проще всего указать на значительность цивилизации в сравнении с культурой в контексте существования неограниченного ничем, кроме административного деления, населения, участвующего в определённых экономических и социальных (иерархических) отношениях. В этом плане культура не подразумевает иерархии (не смотря на лёгкость, с какой можно сортировать культурное многообразие народов на планетарных масштабов вертикали); "пирамидальность", восходящесть-нисходящесть обязанностей не встроена в культурные отношения (подмастерье и мастер в этом контексте не могут превзойти один другого), но привносится развитием цивилизации, и без символической, номинальной, фундаментальной иерархии - последняя невозможна как процесс. Таким образом, возникает разделение цивилизаций на perpetuum становящиеся и immanent "архетипические", наиболее приближающиеся к культуре.
Сборник заключается разумными словами, которые, можно надеяться, обнаруживает адекватный перевод: "Настоящее не может быть рубежом, перед которым, как перед непреодолимым препятствием, останавливаются все века с их неизменными трагедиями; это рубеж, на преодоление которого люди не перестают надеяться" - первая половина, конечно, внушает куда больше доверия (всяческие упоминания "надежды" и "трагедии" в рамках исторического исследования или методологии - заставляют оперировать литературоцидными определениями вроде "романтического плюрализма").
А примерно десятком страниц ранее Фернан Бродель делает весьма актуальное для поточної політичної і соцальної ситуації не теренах України, яка може бути з легкістю перекладена так: "Культура завжди звільняється, інакше це не культура".
В целом, читать не стоит. Гораздо полезнее было бы обратить всецельное внимание на рецензированные в "Очерках" труды.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Annales, I do not like you. You are ridiculous and silly and over-reaching. But you somehow weaseled your way into being an important part of historical analysis, so I will pretend to tolerate you for now.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contains different essays. Included is an explanation of the theory of "longue durée" for which Braudel is famous.

[Aykut Karabay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Braudel müthiş Ufuk açan,vizyon kazandıran bir yazar.Tarih okunurken sadece tek bir alanla sınırlı kalınmaması gerektiğini; disiplinlerarası bir okumayla Tarih,jeoloji,biyoloji,antropoloji,sanat... bütün bilim dallarının birbirini beslemesi gerektiğini,aynı şekilde tek bir ülke tarihini değil,diğer ülkelerle,çevre coğrafyasıyla,diğer kültürlerle ilişkisiyle... anlamamız gerektiğini,yoksa tarihin eksik kalacağını vurguluyor.

[Avempace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of assays by the eminent historian Fernand Braudel tackles fundamentals of historiography: time, space and communities. The scope of time that is focus of the historian's gaze emerges as a critical element: history is best understood not as a linear series of political events but as the unfolding of its substrates: populations, economies, material life etc in the long duree, i.e. over an extended time horizon. This is a key tenant of the French Annales school of historiography, of which Braudel was a major figure. One essay in particular, "History and the Social Sciences: The Longue Durée", is worthy of the price of this volume. Highly recommended.

[Aslihan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of essays that were written and published in different times. The problem with such books is that they lack coherence and often fall into repetition. While the book provides valuable insight on Braudel's understanding of history and multiple uses of time, it lacks a comprehensive approach towards historical research, alternative methodologies, approaches and perspectives in historical research. Braudel also makes certain statements regarding the relationship between history and other social sciences, but again such arguments remain to be sporadic and disorganized. A reader on history has to read more than this, possibly Hobsbawm, Carr and others.

[George Siehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The brief introductory items are enticing, intimating a fireside chat over a couple of glasses of a nice wine. Upon entry, you find it is a graduate level seminar with a critically thinking, widely read taskmaster of an instructor--and you had lost your reading list. A number of the essays here are reviews of history books. The books he likes feature red-ink dissections that might make the authors consider a change of disciplines. About the books he does not like, don't ask.

Braudel addresses, at length throughout the book, some major themes tied to the work of various disciplines which deal with humankind. These themes include the treatment of time as an element in history and the other fields, the existing fractionation of these disciplines, the need for them to more closely coordinate, and what constitutes a "science" among these fields.

It is not surprising that a historian proclaims the centrality of time within his study. The topic reappears in philosophical and intellectual form throughout this book. Braudel writes, "For the historian everything begins and ends with time, a mathematical, godlike time, a notion easily mocked, time external to man, 'exogenous,' as the economists would say..." Nearby he notes, less grandly, "the historian can never get away from the question of time in history; time sticks to his thinking like soil to a gardener's spade." In addressing time--and time spans-- he early identifies three levels of history: "geographical time, social time, and an individual time." His personal preference lies in studying periods of longer duration, what he calls the "longue duree." He comments that, "For me, history is the total of all possible histories," a view that contains, "an assemblage of professions and points of view, from yesterday, today, and tomorrow."

Interestingly, he contrasts the, "history of events," with a focus on much narrower time spans. But, if historians apply the study of "causes and effects" top an event the duration may become, "Infinitely extensible." Such linking, Braudel writes, allowed Benedetto Croce to," claim that within any event all history, all of man is embodied, to be rediscovered at will." This would seemingly extend the history of an event, generally perceived as a short term occurrence, to something approaching Braudel's "longue, duree." Readers will find countless similar causes to reflect throughout "On History."

Braudel hungers for breadth, not only in time, but in subject matter. He observes, with concern, the fractionation of related studies of man in his social settings through time. He finds of the various disciplines, "today they are engaged more busily than ever in defining their aims, their methods, and their superiorities." They engage in border wars over subject matter. Braudel writes, "Each science encroaches on its neighbors, all the while believing it is staying in its own domain."
Braudel makes social science of his era sound like contemporary geopolitics. However, he sees some cause for the disciplines' behavior. He writes, "These squabbles and denials have a certain significance. The wish to affirm one's own existence in the face of others is necessarily the basis for new knowledge."

Untidy and petty as the conflict may be, Braudel suggests an effort to establish a "common market" of cooperative research activity, "even if each science might later be better off readopting...some more strictly private approach." However, "the crucial thing now is to get together in the first place." One important barrier is the difference among disciplines in how they deal with time, as contrasted with history. For instance, "As far as the history of the longue duree is concerned, history and sociology can hardly be said to meet, or even to rub shoulders." Indeed, "sociologists" time can not be ours." With economics there is greater compatibility. "Our time, like economists' time, is one of measure." The economic study of price cycles is observation referencing a period of time, a methodology similar to that of the historian. Nonetheless, he writes of, "a desire, even an imperious desire I have for the unification among the different human sciences."

"Science," that fourth theme mentioned above, is not treated as deeply, as philosophically, as the others. Braudel writes that economics is, "perhaps the most advanced of the human sciences," because of its use of mathematics. The demographer claims "that his criteria alone can control and explain everything." He adds, Sociologists, historians, geographers, psychologists, ethnographers are even more naif." He distances the human sciences from the traditional domains of math, physical, and biological science. He explains: "There could be no science, so they used to say, without the ability to predict; it had to be prophetic, or nothing. Today we would say that no social science, history included, can be prophetic, and thus by the old rules of the game none of them can lay claim to the title of a science." He adds, "there can be no science without historical continuity." One might add the standard test of science, that of replicability of results. Braudel cites the tendency of each human science to, "take up the whole of social organization and to explain it all by itself." This vanity leads to such deterministic theories as "an economism, a geographism, a sociologism, a historicism." He speaks of using the term "auxiliary science," but this most embarrasses or rankles the young social sciences." He adds, however, "to my mind all the human sciences without exception are each auxiliary one to the other..." Nonetheless, he uses the term human sciences throughout the book.

The book is highly recommended for historians, particularly those who have read widely among the works of the French historians. General readers who enjoy a challenge will find this a stimulating and rewarding excursion, as well.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A COLLECTION OF THE FAMED FRENCH HISTORIAN'S WRITINGS ON THE NATURE OF HISTORY

Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School (i.e., emphasizing social rather than political or diplomatic themes, and opposed to Marxist historiography). He wrote in the Preface to this 1969 book, "This collection did not originate with me. Two or three years ago, my Polish and then my Spanish friends decided to collect and translate the few articles and essays which I had published in the past twenty years on the nature of history. This volume is the final result."

He explained, "A useful understanding has to be arrived at ... that the way to study history is to view it as a long duration, as what I have called the 'longue durée'... which by itself can pose all the great problems of social structures, past and present." (Pg. viii) He suggests, "There is... a history slower that the history of civilizations, a history which almost stands still, a history of man in his intimate relationship to the earth which bears and feeds him; it is a dialogue which never stops repeating itself, which repeats itself in order to persist, which may and does change superficially, but which goes on, tenaciously, as though it were somehow beyond time's reach and ravages." (Pg. 12)

He asserts, "We have already stated our mistrust of a history occupied solely with events. To be fair, though, if there is a sin in being overconcerned with events, then history, though the most obvious culprit, is not the only guilty one. All the social sciences have shared in this error." (Pg. 35) He adds, "sociology and history made up one single intellectual adventure, not two different sides of the same cloth but the very stuff of that cloth itself." (Pg. 69) He clarifies, "As far as the history of the 'longue durée' is concerned, history and sociology can hardly be said to meet, or even to rub shoulders. This would be saying too little. What they do is mingle. The 'longue durée' is the endless, inexhaustible history of structures and groups of structures. For the historian a structure is not just a thing built, put together; it also means permanence, sometimes for more than centuries." (Pg. 75)

He argues, "If I stand so strongly against the ideas of Toynbee ['A Study of History'] or Spengler ['The Decline of the West'], it is because these ideas persist in bringing humanity back to the old times... In order to accept that today's civilizations repeat the cycle of that of the Incas, or whomever, we would first have to concede that neither technology, nor economics, nor demography has any very great bearing on civilizations." (Pg. 215)

Braudel's book will be of keen interest to anyone studying the philosophy of history, or historiography in general.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

The master of the long duree' speaks. When Fernand Braudel died the LOS ANGELES TIMES declared that "if there were a Nobel Prize for historians, Braudel would have won it". (Actually, historians are eligible for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but the last one to win was Winston Churchill, a measure of how far history has fallen in popular esteem.) Braudel in these pieces presents his overarching thesis that change---political, social, economic, and cultural--is vastly overrated. The stuff of human lives, starting with the soil, weather, agriculture, wages, prices, and up the food chain, varies very little from one historical epoch to another and political and economic alterations, monarchy to republic or vice versa, feudalism to capitalism, means even less. Braudel's materialism is the opposite of Marx's. Modes of production may give way to others but humanity drags on like before. This historical pessimism came naturally to the generation of the 1930s in France, stuck between a horrific Stalinism in Russia, a decayed democracy at home, and the growing threat of fascism chez Paris and Nazi Germany. Agree or disagree, Braudel forces his readers to consider whether progress in history is an illusion. "Don't try", Fernand Braudel?

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fernand Braudel was a leading post-war French historian who is most associated with two approaches to historical scholarship which are evident in this book. First is the "longue duree" which he argues is the slow moving, multi-century movement of human history. Braudel contrasts the longue duree with the shorter timespans typically studied by historians, who investigate events over years or decades. Most particularly, Braudel is at odds with the study of the history of events, which is argues is shallow, spasmodic and does not illuminate human society. Braudel's second important contribution is to reach out to other social sciences and call for cooperative scholarship to better understand human history. He argues that no social science, including history, has a monopoly on understanding human society and that only combining the skills of social scientists will improve our understanding.
Braudel's work is a collection of essays, book chapters and book reviews which illuminate his perspective. I thoroughly recommend the work to any serious student of historical method.

[Morten Greve · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found some of Braudel’s brief discussions of the basic distinction between history as events, as conjuncture, and as vast expanse, as structural time - that is, as “longue durée” - very interesting. Also a few sections addressing the concept of civilization caught my attention. Unfortunately, most of the book is taken up with strangely unengaging reviews of the books of a string of historians of his time (and before).

Maybe I should read something else from his oeuvre?

[Katrinka · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. I just don't know; Braudel has a magnificent way of writing lucid poetic scholarship. The rating would have been higher, had I not been dragged down by some of the book reviews that probably aren't all that meaningful or interesting unless you're a specialist in mid-twentieth-century French historical debates.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Valuable read for students and historians considering the nature of history

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

sorry braudel, i know what a big of a deal you're but not even that could make this reading enjoyable. still analyzing this book as a history major it's great

[Sense of History]

Collection of essays, with of course a great one on the theory of Braudel's "longue durée". I read this a very long time ago, and I must admit I was not really impressed. The collection is rather haphazardly produced.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good collection of articles by Fernand Braudel on history. It gives you an overview of his approach to the subject, and of his major areas of specialisation.