Burke Chapters 3 & 4

Chapter 3 explains that Fernand Braudel was a very important figure to the Annales school. Braudel's first major work, The Mediterranean, was one of the most complete historical texts to emerge from this group of historians. Starting his historical studies, he began by looking at the relationship of Phillip II of Spain to the Mediterranean, but after meeting Febvre he soon realized the larger importance of Geogpraphy and the smaller importance of individuals to history. One of the greatest strengths of Braudel's work was his separation of time into three different rates. He speaks of the quick, but insignificant, passage of events that occur "at the surface" of history. The middle is the cultural passage of time; the movement of ideas and trade, and finally, the slowest but most important, is the geographic time. The geographic time which Braudel writes about in The Mediterranean is the closest to a global understanding of history because it doesn't focus on anything specific, instead speaking of the relationships of a people to the terrain they live in. His work made the historical world realize the importance of space, rather than people, to the passage of history. Another of his great contributions to the Annales school was when he was President of the Sixth Section of the School. He created another organization which focused on interdisciplinary studies, and moved them all to the same area of the city.

Chapter 4 discusses the new generation of historians that grew up after the world wars. This group of Historians either build their arguments on Braudel or Febvre's ideas or argued against them. They either agreed or disagreed with the importance of ideas like "quantitative study", geo-history, or the study of mentalites. Phillipe Aries disagrees with many of the previous historians ideas and argues that childhood was important in following history and understanding the cause and effect of humans.