Tarikh Islam

The present paper seeks to investigate the effect of structuralism on the first and second generations of the historiographers of “Annales” School. To this end, it begins the discussion with a fundamental question about the nature of the effect of structuralism on the historiography of Annales School. This type of historiography was first developed by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre and then it was brought to a climax by Ferdnand Braudel, when the world’s scientific atmosphere was greatly under the influence of structuralism. This school of thought exerted influence on many branches of the human sciences such as sociology, linguistics, anthropology, ethnology, psychology etc. Finally, it encroached on historiography and exerted permanent effects on this sphere. This led to the development of total history. The approach towards history changed, the bias towards political history was eliminated and history became more and more concerned with common people or daily life. History was closely interrelated with geography. Now the society, and not individual, is viewed as the starting point in historical studies. Finally, other disciplines embedded in history. Sociology, economics, linguistics, sociology, climatology, ethnology and the like mingled with history, and historians referred to these disciplines in order to fully understand history. Therefore, we can conclude that the interrelation between structuralism and history represents the threshold of a new era which has different features.