Research On The Annales School’s Concept Of Time

When we review the history of the western historiography in the 20^thcentury,the achievements and influences of the Annales School of France shouldn’t be ignored.Since Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch established the Annales School,its historians have paid lots of attention to the issue of historical time and four generations of them have made their own unique explanations on this issue successively.Compared with historians in the 19^thcentury,the historians of the Annales School proposed a new concept of historical time,namely the Annales School’s concept of time,which is quite different from the traditional historiography.This thesis takes the Annales School’s concept of time as the research object and aims to clarify the evolutionary process of its proposal,inheritance,development and improvement,explore the rich connotation behind it,and reveal its uniqueness and innovation in comparison to the traditional concept of historical time.This thesis consists of seven parts:The Introduction part introduces the research status of the Annales School’s concept of time,illuminates the significance,innovation and research methods of this thesis,and delimits the notion of“concept of time”.Chapter One discusses the Méthodique School’s concept of time and the crisis of time arising in the early 20^thcentury.In the early stage of the Annales School,The Méthodique School was its main rival and object to criticize.Thus,An investigation into the Méthodique School is essential if we want to clarify the Annales School’s concept of time.In the crisis of time arising in the early 20th century,common people’s experiences of time has undergone drastic changes.This made historiography have to adjust its own concept of time urgently.However,the Méthodique historians were either incapable or indifferent.These constitute an important background to the proposal of the Annales School’s concept of time.Chapter Two mainly investigates both founders—Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre’s concept of time.They both emphasized a bilateral relationship between past and present,advocated the diversity of historical times and proposed historical research based on the Longue-Durée perspective.Through those actions,they criticized the Méthodique School’s concept of time and established the basic framework of the Annales School’s concept of time.Chapter Three focuses on Fernand Braudel’s concept of time.Braudel’s concept of time is not only the inheritance and development of the first generation’s concept,but also the product of a continuous interaction between history and other social sciences,with the theory of Longue-Durée being its concentrated expression.Braudel’s concept of time is an important stage in the evolutionary process of the Annales School’s concept of time,which marks the maturity of the Annales School’s concept of time and has a profound impact on its subsequent development.Chapter Four discusses the third generation of the Annales School’s concept of time.Braudel and his Longue-Durée theory have a profound influence on the historians of the third generation.On the one hand,they expanded the connotation of Longue-Durée.On the other hand,they also corrected its shortcomings.At the same time,they conducted a more in-depth exploration of historical time issues and opened up a broader research field.Chapter Five mainly discusses Francois Hartog and his research on regimes of historicity.The regime of historicity is a conceptual tool constructed by historians to analyze the experience of time,and it has rich connotations.With this tool,Hartog analyzed several types of temporal experience that existed in human history and proposed the hypothesis of"presentism".The Conclusion part summarizes the evolutionary process of the Annales School’s concept of time and makes an overall analysis and evaluation of it.