Precepts
An eminent member of this school, Georges Duby, wrote in the foreword of his book Le dimanche de Bouvines that the history he taught
relegated the sensational to the sidelines and was reluctant to give a simple accounting of events, but strived on the contrary to pose and solve problems and, neglecting surface disturbances, to observe the long and medium-term evolution of economy, society and civilisation.
The Annalistes, especially Lucien Febvre, advocated a histoire totale, or histoire tout court, a complete study of a historic problem.
Read more about this topic: Annales School
Famous quotes containing the word precepts:
“The Brahmins say that in their books there are many predictions of times in which it will rain. But press those books as strongly as you can, you can not get out of them a drop of water. So you can not get out of all the books that contain the best precepts the smallest good deed.”
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
“Teaching creativity to your child isn’t like teaching good manners. No one can paint a masterpiece by bowing to another person’s precepts about elbows on the table.”
—Gurney Williams III (20th century)
“If morality had naturally no influence on human passions and actions, it were in vain to take such pains to inculcate it; and nothing would be more fruitless than that multitude of rules and precepts with which all moralists abound.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)