Peter Burke summarises the aims which the founders of the journal Annales had in mind as follows: ‘In the first place, the substitution of a problem-oriented analytical history for a traditional narrative of events. In the second place, the history of the whole range of human activities in the place of a mainly political history. In the third place – in order to achieve the first two aims – a collaboration with other disciplines: geography, sociology, psychology, economics, linguistics, social anthropology, and so on.’ (p. 2) He identifies three main phases in the revolution in historical thinking and method which resulted.

The first phase covered the period between the two World Wars, when the exponents of the new view of history which was advocated in the journal were widely ignored or attacked. The second phase lasted for the first two decades after the end of the Second World War when ‘the rebels took over the historical Establishment’ (p. 3), becoming a school widely employing the concepts of structure and conjoncture. There followed a third phase beginning circa 1968 and lasting until the late 1980s; in these decades there was increasing fragmentation, with some members of the group returning to political history and employing narrative, illustrating the ‘common cyclical process by which the rebels of today turn into the Establishment of tomorrow, and are in turn rebelled against’ (p. 4).

The achievements and widespread influence of the work of the Annalistes are both striking and unmistakable. Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, Pierre Goubert, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and many others have become familiar names to historians throughout the world. Burke succeeds in compressing into a relatively short text a description and assessment both of the work of the school as a whole and of the individual historians who participated in its activities, while also describing the significance of the institutions which gave prominence and cohesion to the work of the school, notably the Centre des Recherches Historiques in the Sixième Section of the École des Hautes Études.

One of the most influential changes in historical practice pioneered by the Annales school, and closely linked to their recognition of the importance of encouraging contact and co-operation with scholars in neighbouring academic disciplines, has been the employment of groups of scholars in joint research projects. Historical research had normally been the province of lone scholars. Work in social and economic history in particular has greatly changed in recent years as group-based research has become more common. The relative importance of the work of the Annales school compared with other factors in this connection is, of course, impossible to establish with any certainty, but has been considerable.

Many of the most influential publications of the Annalistes, exemplified in the work of Braudel, covered broad sweeps of time and wide geographical areas. They introduced historians in all countries to a characteristic manner of thought and analysis. However, there were also a host of publications based on detailed research relating to a particular region over a limited period. It is a striking feature of the work of this nature that the Annalistes were seldom drawn into work on the industrial revolution and its aftermath. They dealt primarily with medieval and early modern history in European countries. In the writing of some of the scholars there is an apparent regret at the disruption of long-established patterns of life and culture brought about by the advent of the industrial revolution. Paul Vidal de la Blache, for example, in La France de l'Est, described the way in which the advent of a modern cotton industry in Alsace, and the construction of a rail network, led to the disappearance of the fundamental continuities of regional life which had lasted for millennia. Regional autonomy was giving way to urban hierarchy. He regretted the change even while analysing it with distinction. De la Blache, a geographer, was an influential figure in the years when the school was first taking shape (he died in 1918). He had provided the text for most of the first volume of Ernest Lavisse's eight-volume Histoire de la France, exemplifying the close association between the two disciplines which had long existed in France, in contrast to the position in England and in many other countries.

Burke provides an excellent account of the French historical revolution and conveys effectively both its novelty and the scale of its achievements. Although the scope of his book matches the breadth and variety of the achievements of the school, it is far more than a catalogue, since he offers comments and assessments which add much to the information provided. Occasionally his comments may appear provocative. He remarks, for example, that ‘The quantitative approach to history in general, and to cultural history in particular, can obviously be criticized as reductionist. Generally speaking, what can be measured is not what matters.’ (p. 92) Arguably, this is true of cultural history, but it is at least debatable whether it is true of history generally.

A great deal was achieved by the Annales school, and its influence on the writing of history over the past century has been notable. In relation to European history in the medieval and early modern periods, its influence is comparatively easy to assess. In relation to the history of continents other than Europe and to the world created by the industrial revolution, its influence is less easy to assess, since much of it was indirect. Burke devotes a chapter to ‘The Annales in global perspective’ which includes a suggestive sentence in this connection: ‘It should be added that Annales history was the child of its time, or more exactly of the series of times through which France and the world has passed since the 1920s' (p. 136).