iPedia Free Information Center

Information about Fernand Braudel

Fernand Braudel (August 24 1902–November 27 1985) was a French historian. He revolutionized the 20th century study of his discipline by considering the effects of such outside disciplines as economics, anthropology, and geography on global history[1]. He was a prominent member of the Annales School of historiography, who concentrated on meticulous historical analysis in the social sciences.

Life

Braudel was born in Luméville-en-Ornois, in the département of the Meuse, France, where he also lived with his paternal grandmother for a long time. He studied at the elite Paris Institute of Political Studies (better known as Sciences Po). 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. In 1923, he went to Algeria, then a French colony, to teach history. Returning to France in 1932, he worked as a high school teacher and met Lucien Febvre, the co-founder of the influential Annales journal, who was to have a great influence on his work. With him, he travelled to Brazil in 1935 to "build" the University of São Paulo, returning together with Febvre in 1937. 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.

Work

In 1962, he wrote A History of Civilizations to be 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 [2]

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. It 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 much description of the social impact of economic events on everyday life, and gives much attention to food, fashion, social customs and similar areas.

Braudel claims 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 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 argued that "structures"—a word he uses to mean many kinds of organized behaviours, attitudes, and conventions, as well as literal structures and infrastructures—that were built up in Europe during the Middle Ages contributed to or were perhaps responsible for the success of European-based cultures up to the present day. Much of this he appears to attribute to the long-lived independence of city-states, which although later subjected by geographic states, were not always completely suppressed--probably for reasons of usefulness.

One feature of Braudel's work is his evident compassion for the suffering of marginal people[3]. He points out 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 gives importance to the apparently ephemeral lives of slaves, serfs, and peasants, as well as to the urban poor, and shows 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.

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[4]. He can also be considered as one of the precursors of World Systems Theory.

SUNY Binghamton in New York has a Fernand Braudel Center, and there is an Instituto Fernand Braudel de Economia Mundial in São Paulo, Brazil.

Recognition

After he had published la Méditerannée, Braudel went into the Bibliothèque National and applied for a library card. He was handed a short form to fill out. Under "Nom," he wrote "BRAUDEL, Fernand"; under "Métier," he wrote "historien." He was turned down. He then wrote The Structures of Ordinary Life.

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
  • The Mediterranean in the Ancient World
  • Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe siècle (1979)
* Les structures du quotidien (vol. 1) ISBN 2-253-06455-6
* Les jeux de l'échange (vol. 2) ISBN 2-253-06456-4
* Le temps du monde (vol. 3) ISBN 2-253-06457-2
  • Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries, 3 vols. (1979)
  • On History (1980), English translation of Ecrits sur l'Histoire by Sian 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)
  • Personal Testimony Journal of Modern History, vol. 44, no. 4. (December 1972)

References

  • Pierre Daix, Braudel, (Paris: Flammarion, 1995)
  • Giuliana Gemelli, Fernand Braudel (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1995)
  • Hufton, Olwen. "Fernand Braudel", Past and Present, No. 112. (Aug., 1986), pp. 208–213.

Notes

1. ^ Fernand Braudel, A History of Civilizations, translated by Richard Mayne (New York: Penguin Books, 1993).
2. ^ Richard Mayne, "Translator's Introduction" in Fernand Braudel, "A History of Civilization," (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), pp. xxvi-xxvii.
3. ^ Fernand Braudel, A History of Civilizations, translated by Richard Mayne (New York: Penguin Books, 1993).
4. ^ i.e. Fernand Braudel, "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II" (Berkely: University of California Press, 1996)

External links

Preceded by
André Chamson		Seat 15
Académie française
1984-1985		Succeeded by
Jacques Laurent
August 24 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events


..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1870s  1880s  1890s  - 1900s -  1910s  1920s  1930s
1899 1900 1901 - 1902 - 1903 1904 1905

Year 1902 (MCMII
..... Click the link for more information.
November 27 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 1095 - Pope Urban II declares the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont.

..... Click the link for more information.
20th century - 21st century
1950s  1960s  1970s  - 1980s -  1990s  2000s  2010s
1982 1983 1984 - 1985 - 1986 1987 1988

Year 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link displays 1985 Gregorian calendar).
..... Click the link for more information.
historian is an individual who studies history and who writes on history.[1] The person may be an authority (or expert) over history,<ref name="wordnetprinceton" /> but this is not a requirement.
..... Click the link for more information.
Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Greek for oikos (house) and nomos (custom or law), hence "rules of the house(hold).
..... Click the link for more information.
Anthropology (from Greek: ἄνθρωπος, anthropos, "human being"; and λόγος, logos, "speech" lit. to talk about human beings) is the study of humanity.
..... Click the link for more information.
Geography - (from the Greek words Geo (γη) or Gaea (γαία), both meaning "Earth", and graphein (γράφειν) meaning "to describe" or "to write"
..... Click the link for more information.
The Annales School (Annales is pronounced /a(n)'nal(ə)/ in French) is a school of historical writing named after the French scholarly journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale (later called
..... Click the link for more information.
Historiography studies the processes by which historical knowledge is obtained and transmitted. Broadly speaking, historiography examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods, drawing upon such elements such as authorship, sourcing, interpretation, style, bias,
..... Click the link for more information.
The social sciences are a group of academic disciplines that study human aspects of the world. They diverge from the arts and humanities in that the social sciences tend to emphasize the use of the scientific method in the study of humanity, including quantitative and qualitative
..... Click the link for more information.
Meuse

Coat of arms of the Meuse department
Location

Administration
Department number: 55
Region: Lorraine
Prefecture: Bar-le-Duc
Subprefectures: Commercy
Verdun
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"
Anthem
"La Marseillaise"


..... Click the link for more information.
Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (English: Paris Institute of Political Studies), often referred to as Sciences Po (pronounced see-ahns po), is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France.
..... Click the link for more information.
Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (English: Paris Institute of Political Studies), often referred to as Sciences Po (pronounced see-ahns po), is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France.
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
من الشعب و للشعب    (Arabic)
"From the people and for the people"
Anthem
..... Click the link for more information.
Lucien Febvre (July 22, 1878, Nancy - Saint-Amour, Jura, September 11, 1956) was a French historian best known for the role he played in establishing the Annales School of history.
..... Click the link for more information.
For the school of historical writing, see: Annales School


Annales is Latin, French,... for Annals a concise form of historical writing which record events chronologically, year by year.
..... Click the link for more information.
University of São Paulo (in Portuguese Universidade de São Paulo; USP) is one of the three public universities funded by the State of São Paulo. The Brazilian publication Student Guide currently ranks USP as the best university of the country [1] .
..... Click the link for more information.
prisoner of war (POW, PoW, or PW) is a combatant who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict.

Ancient times


..... Click the link for more information.
Luebeck.


Lübeck
Holstentor
Coat of arms Location

Administration
Country Germany
State Schleswig-Holstein

District Urban district

City subdivisions
..... Click the link for more information.
Anthem
"Das Lied der Deutschen" (third stanza)
also called "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit"
..... Click the link for more information.
University of Paris (French: Université de Paris) first appeared in the second half of the 12th century, but was in 1970 reorganised as 13 autonomous universities (University of Paris I–XIII).
..... Click the link for more information.
Cliometrics refers to the systematic use of economic theory and econometric techniques to study economic history. The term was originally coined by Jonathan R.T. Hughes and Stanley Reiter in 1960 and refers to Clio, who was the muse of history and heroic poetry in Greek mythology.
..... Click the link for more information.
Food is any substance, usually composed primarily of carbohydrates, fats, water and/or proteins, that can be eaten or drunk by an animal or human being for nutrition or pleasure.
..... Click the link for more information.
Fashion is a term that usually applies to a prevailing mode of expression, but quite often applies to a personal mode of expression that may or may not apply to all. Inherent in the term is the idea that the mode will change more quickly than the culture as a whole.
..... Click the link for more information.
In sociology, a norm, or social norm, is a rule that is socially enforced. Social sanctioning is what distinguishes norms from other cultural products or social constructions such as meaning and values.
..... Click the link for more information.
Economic systems

Ideologies and Theories
Primitive communism
Capitalist economy
Corporate economy
Fascist economy
Laissez-faire
Mercantilism
Natural economy
Social market economy
Socialist economy
Communist economy


..... Click the link for more information.
Country Italy
Region Veneto
Province Venice (VE)
Mayor Massimo Cacciari (since April 18 2005)

Area km
Population
 - Total (as of January 1 2004)
 - Density /km
Time zone
..... Click the link for more information.
Antwerp (Dutch: Antwerpen   (help info ) , French: Anvers) is a city and municipality in Belgium and the capital of the Antwerp province in Flanders, one of Belgium's three
..... Click the link for more information.


This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
Herod_Archelaus


page counter