History from Below

 

“History from Below” is an approach in historiography that focuses on the experiences of ordinary people. It highlights the movements and contributions of marginalized and oppressed groups. This approach opposes and challenges the elite and popular histories. It emerged in the mid-20^th century. The important historians associated with this approach are E.P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, and Christopher Hill.

ü  E.P. Thompson: His book, The Making of the English Working Class recovers the voices and struggles of working-class individuals during the Industrial Revolution.

ü  Eric Hobsbawm: His important books in this regard are: Primitive Rebels, Bandits and Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour

Features of “History from Below”

ü History of Common People: This approach focuses on the lives, struggles, perspectives and contributions of ordinary people. It explored the experiences of peasants, workers, women, ethnic minorities, and colonized peoples.

ü  Everyday Life and Culture: This approach examines the everyday life, including family structures, religious practices, and cultural traditions of ordinary people.

ü  Role of Ordinary People in History: This approach shows the role of ordinary people in shaping history.

ü  Oral History and Alternative Sources: Historians of this approach use unconventional sources, such as folk traditions, oral history, life history, local records, diaries, letters and so on.

ü  Interdisciplinary Approach: It combines the sources and methods of sociology, anthropology, economics, and political science.

ü  Criticism of Elite History: It challenges the idea that history is shaped by the elites. They exhibited the role of common people in historical movements.

Thus, this approach influenced women’s history, gender history, subaltern studies, Dalit history and histories of other marginalized groups.     

Arnold J Toynbee and A Study of History

 

Arnold J. Toynbee was a British historian and philosopher of history. He is well known for his work, A Study of History.  In this book, he analyzed the rise and fall of civilizations. He also presented theories to explain his analysis.

A Study of History and Analysis of Civilizations

In his 12-volume book, A Study of History, Toynbee examined the rise and fall of 26 major civilizations. He proposed a cyclical theory of civilization. He argued that Civilizations generally passed through the stages of origin, growth, breakdown and Disintegration. He presented theories to explain the different stages of civilizations.

Origin of the Civilizations - Challenge and Response Theory

Toynbee argues that the origin and development of Civilizations depend on the response to the emerging challenges. He outlines environmental, social, and political challenges that arise in the beginning state of Civilizations. If a civilization successfully responds to these challenges, it grows and develops. The ability to innovate, adapt, and find solutions is crucial. If a civilization fails to adapt, it enters a period of decline.

Creative Minority and Growth of the Civilizations

Toynbee argued that civilizations rise and flourish when a small group of individuals— the creative minority—introduces new ideas, values, and solutions to challenges. The fate of a civilization largely depends on the leadership of this creative minority.

Breakdown of Civilizations

In this stage, the creative minority loses its ability to lead effectively. The failure of creative minority causes internal conflicts and rigid institutions weaken the civilization. This results in the breakdown of the civilization.

Disintegration Stage

This is the final decline stage of a civilization. It marks a period of social unrest, economic decline, and external invasions. This accelerates the collapse and civilization either dissolves completely or is absorbed into a new emerging civilization.

The Role of Religion in Civilization

Toynbee emphasized the role of religion in shaping civilizations. He believed that civilizations are deeply influenced by religion and spirituality. He argued that the most successful civilizations had strong moral and religious foundations. When civilizations abandoned their spiritual values, they often entered decline.

Toynbee’s analysis of civilization inspired later studies on world history, globalization, and the interaction between civilizations.

The Frankfurt School and the Development of Critical Theory

The Frankfurt School was founded in 1923 at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany. Soon it emerged as an intellectual movement and several scholars contributed to it. This school of thought is known for developing Critical Theory. The scholars associated with this school critically examined society, culture, and politics through a Marxist lens. They were inspired by the Marxist philosophy and tried to revise and update it with new insights. The School outlined an interdisciplinary research program that incorporated insights from philosophy, social theory, psychology, political economy, and cultural analysis. They made significant contributions to critical theory, philosophy, sociology, and cultural studies.

Key Intellectuals and their Contributions

• Max Horkheimer: He played a crucial role in developing critical theory. His famous essay, “Traditional and Critical Theory”, critiques the traditional theory and distinguishes it from critical theory. Along with Adorno, he authored the book Dialectic of Enlightenment.
• Theodor Adorno: He is known for his critiques of mass culture, authoritarianism, and Enlightenment rationality. His book Dialectic of Enlightenment (with Horkheimer) argued that modern rationality had led to new forms of oppression.
• Herbert Marcuse: In his work One-Dimensional Man, he focused on the repressive nature of advanced industrial societies. He argued that advanced industrial societies use technology and consumerism to suppress dissent and maintain control.
• Walter Benjamin: He explored the impact of technology on art and culture, emphasizing the revolutionary potential of media.
• Erich Fromm: Analyzed the psychological dimensions of capitalism and authoritarianism.
• Jürgen Habermas: Developed the concept of the public sphere, arguing that democratic societies require open, rational discourse. His work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962), remains foundational in media studies and political theory.

Development of Critical Theory

Critical Theory is a form of interdisciplinary critique aimed at revealing the hidden power structures that shape society. It is a form of Marxist-inspired social theory that seeks to critique and transform society rather than merely understand it. It was based on Marxism philosophy but also utilized the insights of psychoanalysis, sociology, existential philosophy, and other disciplines. Unlike traditional Marxism, they emphasized culture, ideology, and mass media as essential forces in maintaining capitalist dominance. The Frankfurt School studied how capitalist societies maintained control not just through economics but through ideological domination. Critical theory emphasizes the role of ideology, power, and domination in shaping society. This approach aims at emancipation from all forms of domination and the establishment of reasonable conditions of life. This also aimed to uncover hidden structures of oppression and promote social justice.

Criticism of Capitalism and Enlightenment Rationality

The Frankfurt School analyzed the contradictions of capitalism. They focused on how capitalism maintains inequality, alienation, and exploitation. They also critiqued the Enlightenment tradition. They argued that its emphasis on rationality and progress had been co-opted by capitalist and authoritarian systems, leading to new forms of domination, i.e. the domination through technology, bureaucracy, mass culture, and so on.

Analysis of Mass Culture and the Culture Industry

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno introduced the concept of the culture industry. They believed that mass culture discourages critical thinking. They argued that mass-produced culture (film, radio, TV, and music) manipulates public consciousness, making individuals passive consumers rather than critical thinkers. They believed that popular culture functioned as a tool for ideological control, reinforcing capitalist and authoritarian values. This critique remains influential in media studies and cultural criticism.

Influence on Sociology and Psychology

Erich Fromm combined Marxist and Freudian ideas to analyze how psychological repression contributed to authoritarian personalities and conformist societies. The Frankfurt School influenced studies on social behavior, ideology, and authoritarianism, notably contributing to research on fascism and mass psychology. The ideas of the Frankfurt School influenced various social movements, including the New Left, student protests of the 1960s, and feminist and anti-colonial struggles.

Interdisciplinary Approach

The Frankfurt School carried out an interdisciplinary approach. They incorporated the insights from philosophy, sociology, psychology, economics, and cultural studies to analyze complex social phenomena. This approach laid the groundwork for later developments in critical theory and cultural studies.

Conclusion

The Frankfurt School brought critical analyses of modernity, capitalism, culture, and authoritarianism. They offered critical tools for understanding and challenging systems of domination. Their work remains a foundation of contemporary critical thought. It continues to shape cultural studies, critical media theory, political science, sociology, and philosophy. Its emphasis on ideological critique, mass culture, and power structures remains relevant in analyzing contemporary issues like digital surveillance, media influence, and neoliberalism.

Thucydides and the Perfection of Historical Writing

 

Thucydides (460-400 BCE) was the greatest historian of ancient Greece. He was an Athenian and served as a general during the Peloponnesian War, a conflict between Athens and Sparta that lasted for about thirty years. After his failure as a general, Thucydides was exiled and spent several years in exile. His work reflects his rich experience in a variety of ways.

History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides was the author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which records the struggle between Athens and Sparta in the 5th century BC. His work was the first recorded political and moral analysis of a nation’s war policies. The book was later divided into eight books according to the narration of the events.

Sources and Method

Thucydides used oral evidence, visual testimony, archaeological or material remains, inscriptions, and earlier accounts by Herodotus and Homer as his sources. Apart from these, he used speeches of his contemporaries like the originals in his work. Further, as a military general, he was able to collect all the primary military documents. This helped him to write an authentic history of the war.

Thucydides confined himself to relating events that he was able to observe from beginning to end during his lifetime. He used critical analysis of the sources to separate truth from fiction. He claims that he has achieved such accuracy because he includes facts ‘only after investigating with the greatest possible accuracy each detail’. He also framed his conclusions after analysing the events. He denied rumours, traditions, and myths in his accounts. He even tried to make certain generalisations. He avoided the storytelling method of Herodotus.

Merits of his work

ü  Thucydides used an analytical method to reach possible objectivity.

ü  He kept a strict chronological scheme and tried to present a truthful description.

ü  Thucydides gives priority to primary documents and frames possible conclusions and generalisations.

ü  Thucydides was not only concerned with individuals but also with the actions, sufferings, and the characters of states.

ü He also studied the technical aspects of war. He detailed the strategies of war, the equipment, and naval warfare.

Conclusion

Thucydides brought history to its full perfection. He pioneered the scientific method in historical writing with the strict evaluation of sources. R.G. Collingwood considered him the “Father of scientific history”. It can be said that Thucydides with Herodotus founded the writing of history.

Herodotus and the Beginning of Historical Inquiry

Herodotus, the father of history, probably lived between c. 484-425 BCE. He was born in Halicarnassus, a Greek colony in Asia Minor. He travelled widely, through the regions of West Asia, including Palestine and Babylon, North Africa, especially Egypt, through several islands in the Mediterranean Sea, and mainland Greece. These travels helped him to personally observe the living conditions of various regions.

The Book Histories

Herodotus wrote the book Histories. The book begins with the opening sentence: “Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiries”. Thereby he set the first rule for historians – to inquire. The subject matter of his book is the wars between the Greeks and Persians (Greco-Persian Wars). Herodotus dedicated this book to Clio, the muse of History. Herodotus starts his work by saying that he has two purposes for writing his Histories. The first is “to preserve the memory of Greeks and barbarians in their struggles”. The second is "to give the cause of their fighting one another." By this he set ‘Why’ as the fundamental question of inquiry for every historian. The book Histories is later divided into nine books for further study and analysis.

§  Books I–V describes the background of the Greco-Persian Wars;

§  Books VI-IX contains the history of the wars.

Herodotus’s History has two parts. The first part is a systematic narrative of the war with its preliminaries. The second part gives the story of the growth and organization of the Persian Empire. It also describes its geography, social structure, and history.

Sources and Method of Narration

Herodotus’s wide travels helped him to collect a variety of sources. He used the following sources to write his Histories.

ü  Opsis:  Eye witness accounts

ü  Akoe: Hearsay

ü  Talegomena: Tradition

Herodotus in his book declared “I wrote what I saw and what I heard”. This method is known as ‘autopsy’ meaning seeing for oneself. The majority of his work was eyewitness observations. In his work, he included whatever he heard. He also used other sources of information, derived from tradition, religious centres, chronicles, and interviews. Herodotus is a remarkable storyteller. He used the storytelling method with dialogues and speeches to narrate his history.

Merit as a Historian

Herodotus wrote military history. He narrated the war between Greece and Persia and also traced the causes and results. He traced war strategies, planning, organization, and provided different views on the war. He also traced the establishment of the Persian Empire and its various aspects of life. He wrote, “Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.”

Demerits of his Work

Herodotus was blamed for subjectivity and mythical presentation. In narrating the events of the war, he favoured the Greeks against the Persians. Occasionally, he mixed folk traditions with his narrations. He narrated fanciful stories about the war. He accepted whatever he heard as truth without any kind of analysis. He was not bothered about the chronology of events.

Conclusion

Herodotus inaugurated historical tradition and influenced the later historians of his period. He pioneered historical inquiry and traced the causes. Accepting his merit as a historian, Cicero called him the “Father of History”.

Christianity in Chronology and After

 

Since the birth of the Christian era, the periodization of history into ‘dark ages’ and the ‘age of light’ and modernity have found favour with the Christian world. This ahistorical periodization was encouraged by historians and meta-historians like St. Augustine, Celerius, etc. Jesus Christ was made the epicenter of historical evolution. The birth and life of Christ proved to be landmarks in historical progress. All history and civilisation preceding the birth of Christ were considered profane, evil, inferior, and barbarian. Mankind began its spiritual and material progress only after the birth of Christ. Civilisation and humanity were the results. Hence, B.C. signified a period before Christ and was synonymous with darkness, ignorance, and sin. A.D. symbolised the age after Christ and was synonymous with enlightenment and modernity.

This division of history and its evolution were not acceptable to the people of the orient, especially of the non-Christian world. It was also to be borne in mind that not all thinking and rational people of the occident accepted this periodization of history. They found it historically, politically, and scientifically incorrect. There have been movements of stupendous progress and great achievements in philosophy, arts, literature, sciences, etc., in the so-called period before Christ. All of the medieval ages were not enveloped in darkness or wrapped in non-progress.

In the age after Christ, dispassionate study shows enormous spans of darkness and non-progress. Many a page of history has been darkened by misdeeds and bloody exploits. Naturally, a new system or nomenclature that would substantiate ‘B.C.’ with a more universally accepted ‘B.C.E.’ was rooted. ‘Before Common Era’ (B.C.E.) was accepted by a large section of scholars and historians. However, the change from ‘B.C.’ to ‘B.C.E.’ has not found its way into all historical texts. Similarly, ‘A.D.’ has been substantiated by ‘Common Era’ (C.E.). This change is more scientific and rational although it cannot be viewed as a paradigm shift in the concept of periodization.

The changeover is slow and partial, primarily because, old habits do not die easily rather than a lack of conviction in the new changes. Another perceptible reason was the difficulty in comparative studies where earlier authors have profusely adopted ‘B.C.’ and ‘A.D.’

Primary Sources - Archival Sources

 

Archives are the depositories of official and private primary documents. Archival sources are the most important sources for the reconstruction of the modern period. Archives have two important responsibilities:

1. Preservation of historical materials
2. To make them available for studies

Archives can hold both published and unpublished materials, and those materials can be in any format. Materials in archives are often unique, specialized, or rare objects, meaning very few of them exist in the world, or they are the only ones of their kind. Archives differ from libraries in both the types of materials they hold and the way materials are accessed.

Official or Government Documents

Government documents are the widest and the most important type of archival source. These are the official documents relating to local, state, or national governments. Thus, Government archives are the most important depositories regarding historical research. Government archives hold all government documents – both published and unpublished.

Unpublished Documents

The unpublished materials are generally known as Archival Files. The important types of archival files generally found in various government archives are:

• Confidential files
• PWD files
• Proscribed literature
• Daily reports
• Political Files
• Files of various social movements, speeches, etc.

Published Documents

The published materials consist of various official publications. The important among them are:

• Census reports, tax records, and other statistical data: These records provide information such as demography, gender, education, health, caste, community and religious groups, per capita income, and all other data to understand the socio-economic trends over a period of time.
• Government Orders: These include various administrative orders issued by the government departments. It provides evidence for the working of the government system.
• Reports of the various committees constituted by the government: These include various study reports, inquiry committee reports, and all other study reports submitted to the government. Manuals and proceedings, etc.
• Legislation and resolutions
• Debates and speeches by government officials: Speeches by government officials helps to understand various issues relating to the working of the government. It may offer insights into the strength or weakness of a particular government or political figure.
• Records of various government agencies
• Minutes of various government meetings, cables, intelligence, court records, etc.

In India, the British government established an Imperial Record Department for the preservation of official documents in March 1891 in Calcutta. In 1911 it was transferred to New Delhi. There are a number of regional archives working across India. The important among them are Poona State Archives, Madras State Archives, Kerala State Archives, etc.

Private Documents

Private documents are kept in various private archives and most important among them are:

• Special collections: These are found in academic institutions and consisted of personal diaries, manuscripts, photographs, and rare publications.
• Corporate documents: These are the business records preserved in a company or corporation.
• Religious documents: These include documents relating to various religious faith and institutions. These provide information regarding religious practices, the establishment of religious centres, organisation of religious orders, etc.
• Local or Regional Documents: These are locally produced documents and preserved in local libraries and organisations to promote interest in the history of a region. These documents help to reconstruct the local and regional history.
• Community Documents: These are the statistical data, reports, and minutes of various communities and social organisations.

Digital Archives

Modern technological development gave way to the introduction of new methods of preservation and circulation of documents. The digital archives provide scanned copies of all types of rare documents, including rare books, manuscripts, photographs, etc. The documents in digital format are easier to preserve and access. The wide use of the internet provided an opportunity to access these documents from all over the world. Several academic websites provide digital copies of rare books and documents that form the largest archival documents collection in digital format.

Sources of History

Sources are the foundations upon which history is built. Sources differentiate history from myth and story. Sources are the medium for the historian to relook at the past. Polish historian Joachim Lelewel, considered “anything that could contribute to the reconstruction of the past was a historical source”.  Ernst Bernheim, a German historian in his work on Historical Method (1889) refers sources to as “all those data from which the historian draws his knowledge". In this sense, historical source covers all sources of historical knowledge, that is, all information about the human past, in whatever type or form. Thus a potential source is anything from which a historian can draw information about the past. When E H Carr defines ‘history is a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts’, he also underlines the importance of historical facts. Thus, true historical research blends the sources and its interpretations. 

Classification of Sources

J. LeleweI, in his Historyka (The Methodology of History, 1815) classified the sources into three:

                    1         Tradition (oral relations);

                    2         Non-written sources, that is, silent monuments of the past";

                    3         Written sources

He also realized that there may be direct and indirect sources from the point of view of a given research problem. In the modern period, generally, historical sources are mainly classified into two:

a)     Primary Sources, and

b)     Secondary Sources

In simple words, a primary source directly relates to an event; the secondary source indirectly relates to an event. Both are equally important as they complement and supplement each other. It is generally accepted that good historical works are built on primary sources. However, secondary sources are also essential to the historian’s task. The distinction between primary and secondary sources is complicated. Many sources can be categorized either as primary or secondary depending on the subject being studied.

The actual existence of either primary or secondary historical sources does not guarantee their accuracy or validity. Sources tend to be inaccurate, incomplete, and biased because of prejudices or personal interests. The historian's answer is to collect as many independent, well-placed, contemporary sources as possible. Keith Jenkins argues that “certainty is impossible because there are no ‘deeper’ sources to draw on to get things right”. Sources are mute, they speak only when called upon by the historian. Historical research depends on how the historian interprets and organizes these sources of the past. A historian must be constantly critical of the historical materials obtained and examined.

Ziauddin Barani

Ziauddin Barani is one of the greatest Indo-Persian historians of medieval India. He was born in an aristocratic family and held high positions under the Khaljis and the Tughlaqs. Barani was a great scholar.  He was an expert in law and philosophy, and he took a keen interest in History. The two most well-known works of Barani are Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi and Fatwa-i-Jahandari.

Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi

Barani’s Tarikh begins with the accession of Sultan Balban to the throne of Delhi in 1266 and comes to a close with the account of the first six years of Sultan Firuzshah Tughluq’s reign, i.e. the year 1356. The book describes the reigns of eight Delhi Sultans (Balban, Kaikubad, Jalauddin Khalji, Alauddin Khalji, Qutbuddin Mubarak Shah Khalji, Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, Mohammad bin Tughlaq) and the first six years of the reign of Firoz Shah Tughlaq. The careers of Sultans are the primary theme of the book. In addition to the political and military events of these reigns, Barani describes the general administration and economic life, throws light on the age's social institutions, and gives details about the cultural role performed by intellectuals, scholars, poets, and saints.

In the introductory chapter of Tarikh-i-Firozshahi, Barani lays down the rules of historical writings. He laid great stress on impartiality and truth. Barani had a high conception of the function of a historian, viz. to record impartially and honestly the whole truth without fear or favour. He declares that the job of the historian is not only to praise the activities and good works of the rulers but also to present to readers a critical account of the shortcomings and drawbacks of policies. Barani had his own philosophy of history; it was religious philosophy of history. He believed that the historian would be accountable to God on the day of judgment for what he wrote; his function was to teach ‘the lessons of history’.

Barani’s Tarikh is unique to the Persian history writing tradition prevalent till his times. It is for the first time that he tries to analyse the cause and effect of the events and developments taking place in polity and economy.

Fatwa-i-Jahandari

Barani’s subsequent work, Fatawa Jahandari, contains his advice to rulers on administration, state policy, and army. Through his work, he tried to educate the Sultans about their duties. It is an important contribution to political and military thinking of the period and scholars of his age.

Conclusion

Though Barani conceived the duties of a historian, he wrote like a storyteller. Thus, he lacked ‘deep research, great discrimination, and sustained effort’. On his own admission, Barani based his work partly on his hearsay statements, and partly on personal observations. Whatever may be his limitations as a historian from the modern point of view, it must be admitted that Barani had a high conception of the function of a historian.

Gramscian Concept of Hegemony

Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist famous for his theory of Hegemony. Gramsci was arrested for his opposition to Mussolini at the age of 35. He spent his later years in prison. While in jail, Gramsci wrote Prison Notebooks which contains his ideas on society, politics, and culture. 

In the Gramscian perspective, dominant groups in a society maintain their dominance by securing the consent of subordinate groups. Gramsci called this kind of domination as hegemony. The concept assumes plain consent given by the majority of a population. However, this consent is not always peaceful. It is a set of ideas by means of which dominant groups attempt to secure the consent of subordinate groups to their leadership.

In Gramsci’s conception, societies maintained their strength through a combination of “domination” or force, and “hegemony”, defined as consent to “intellectual and moral leadership”. Gramsci argued that the ruling intellectual and cultural forces of the era constitute a form of hegemony or domination by ideas and cultural forms that induce consent to the rule of the leading groups in a society.

Gramsci argued that the working class can develop its own hegemony as a strategy to control the State. If the working class is to achieve hegemony, it needs patiently to build up a network of alliances with social minorities. The way of challenging the dominant hegemony is political activity. Here Gramsci proposed two different kinds of political strategies. They are:

• War of Manoeuvre: It is the frontal attack. The main goal is to win quickly.
• War of Position: It is a long struggle. It is a passive revolution.

Gramsci argued that in his day the press was the dominant instrument of producing ideological hegemony. The institutions such as the church, schools, and different associations and groups also played a role. 

Rene Descartes and Cartesianism

René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer. He has been called the 'Father of Modern Philosophy'. It has been said that both modern philosophy and modern mathematics began with the work of Rene Descartes. His analytic method of thinking focused attention on the problem of how we know, which has occupied philosophers ever since.

After consideration of all the previous methods of inquiry, Descartes decided that there must be a better way to find out the true knowledge. The first principle that he finally felt was self-evident was summarized in the statement, "I think, therefore I am". The method developed by Descartes was based on the following rules:

• The first rule was never to accept anything as true unless I recognized it to be evidently such. That is, carefully to avoid precipitation and prejudgment.
• The second was to divide each of the difficulties which I encountered into as many parts as possible, and as might be required for an easier solution.
• The third was to think in an orderly fashion, beginning with the things which were simplest and easiest to understand, and gradually and by degrees reaching toward more complex knowledge, even treating as though ordered materials that were not necessarily so.
• The last was always to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I would be certain that nothing was omitted.

In short, his method required; 

(1) accepting as "truth" only clear, distinct ideas that could not be doubted, 

(2) breaking a problem down into parts, 

(3) deducing one conclusion from another, and 

(4) conducting a systematic synthesis of all things.

Descartes based his entire philosophical approach to science on this deductive method of reasoning. Descartes was highly optimistic about his plan to reconstruct a new and fully reliable body of knowledge.

Cartesianism

Cartesianism is the name was given to the philosophical doctrine (or school) of René Descartes. Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to develop the natural sciences. For him, philosophy was a thinking system that embodied all knowledge and expressed it in this way.

Cartesians view the mind as being wholly separate from the body. The mind can perhaps interact with a physical body, but it does not exist in the body. In general, Cartesian thought divides the world into three areas of existence:

• that inhabited by the physical body (matter),
• that inhabited by the mind, and
• that inhabited by God.

Annales School of Historiography

The Annales School of historiography is one of the most important developments in twentieth-century history-writing. This school of historiography emerged in France with the foundation of a journal – Annales of Economic and Social History. The journal was founded in 1929 by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre. Annals School of historiography was developed through the writings of three generations of historians. They are March Bloch and Lucien Febvre, Fernand Braudel, and Immanuel Ley Roy Ladurie. Annales School was critical of the German scientific school. They also criticised the positive tradition. The Annales School brought a paradigm shift in the writing of history. The British historian Peter Burke evaluated the contributions of this School and considered it ‘The French Historical Revolution’. 

The Founders

The founders of the Annales movement were Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre. The Annales movement was against the German empiric school. They also criticised the positivist tradition. Instead of focusing on politics and individuals, they focused on social grouping and collective mindsets. Apart from the primary documents, they made use of a wide range of sources, including maps, folklore, and literature. They brought an Interdisciplinary approach and linked the study of the past with approaches and methods of the social sciences. They wrote history beyond the traditional chronological barriers.

Works of Marc Bloch

• Feudal Society (in two volumes)
• The Royal Touch
• French Rural History
• Strange Defeat
• Historians Craft

Bloch stressed the need for comparison - 'there is no true understanding without a certain range of comparison’. He also stressed the need to cross-question historical sources.

Lucien Febvre and the Study of Mentalities

Febvre analysed the area of emotions and beliefs. His book The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century-The Religion of Rabelais is a critique of religion. His celebrated essay, ‘Sensibility and History: How to Reconstitute the Emotional Life of the Past’ extended the domain of history.

Fernand Braudel and the Mediterranean

Fernand Braudel wrote the book The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. The book provides an account of the interplay between the geography of the region and the power struggle between Spain and the Ottoman Turks. He placed the Mediterranean Sea at the centre of his book. The book is vast in scope and he attempted to write a total history. He continued the Annales movement, widening its focus to include long-term history and economic history.

Immanuel Le Roy Laduri

He was a leading exponent of the concept of "total history" pioneered by the French "Annales" school. His important books are:

• The Peasants of Languedoc
• Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French
• Times of Feast and Times of Famines
• Territory of the Historian

Le Roy Ladurie also wrote about rural history and peasants of the early modern period, and the last thousand years of climatic history.

Features and Contributions of Annales School

• Annales School emphasised the need for interdisciplinary research in history. They established collaboration with other disciplines such as geography, sociology, economics, and anthropology.
• Annales School insisted on "a broadened and deepened history". They extended the scope of historical studies by introducing new themes and methods.
• They introduced themes such as emotions, mentalities, and human behaviour in historical research.
• They used a wide range of source materials including maps, literature, folklore, photographs, etc.
• They attacked the “mere narration of facts” and tried to interpret social phenomena.
• Annales School opposed histories of selected individuals and narrow documentation.
• They introduced the concept of “Total History” to observe the long and medium-term evolution of the economy, society, and civilization.
• They wrote history beyond the traditional chronological frames.

Annales School placed history as a part of Social Science. It was an invitation to historians to learn from Economics, Sociology, Anthropology, and Geography to assess social movements and change. In its later phase, Annales School contributed to the development of gender history, microhistory, history of minorities, and cultural anthropology.

Distortion of Historical Facts

History stands on facts and its interpretations. It is generally considered that ‘all facts are constructed facts’. This problem with the historical facts opens the possibility of distortion of historical facts for promoting specific ideologies and agendas. This can be achieved by creating events that did not happen, altering events that did happen, or omitting events altogether. Over time, knowledge of historical truth will die with those who lived or witnessed it, and the alternate version will be universally accepted as true.

The distortions of historical facts could be due to the following factors:

• Historians have no direct contact with the events that he/she is dealing with
• Loss of records and archaeological evidence
• Politically and religiously motivated elements
• Historiography handled by non-professional and non-academic groups
• Ultra-Nationalism
• Cultural imperialism

Distorting history is an effective method of erasing events from the minds of the population. It is often, a conscious method of glorifying events and people in support of state ideals and vilifying events and people in conflict with state ideals. Presenting history in a way that supports the agenda of the state, and reinforcing it through the public education system and the media can be used to control the perceptions of the populace in ways that prevent dissent and promote nationalism.

The misinterpretation of history will make distorted versions of history. Vested interests misuse history to justify their own points of view. Manipulation of facts for the sake of justifying vested arguments is a common abuse of history. The main common forms of the distortion of history are:

• Altering historical truths
• Rewriting history with fabricated stories
• Manipulation of historical facts
• Using of history as propaganda and for inclusion and exclusion of people and groups

The distortion of historical facts creates a great threat to the discipline of history and the understanding of the past. Historical facts should not be distorted to further an agenda. Good historians do not preselect the evidence according to their point of view. The very act of choosing a fact over another makes it lose its authenticity. Although subjectivity and interpretation cannot be avoided, there is a need to keep both of them distinct.