Status Updates From New History in France: The ...

One of the problems with the Annales school is that it only looks good when in the hands of a genius..., such as Braudel. The epigoni can't quite pull it off...

Example of how poor this translation is. Speaking of Marc Bloch (p. 43): 'When war broke out he was fifty-three. He was a captain during what as come to be known as the "funny war"...' Thus, translating the French "la drôle de guerre", which in English is dubbed instead "the Phoney War" (= German: Sitzkrieg).

Very useful and informative; but as I've noted, an awful (stilted) translation - makes for slow reading. Too lazy to read it in french, tho

Very interesting, though very stilted translation. From 1919 to 1938, the number of chairs in literature in Paris increased from 39 to 59; the number of chairs in history remained stable at 12. Hence, blocked careers. Braudel, who took the agrégation in 1923, had to wait till 1938 for a marginal position. Lefebvre reached the Sorbonne only at age 63, and Bloch never.