Adapt or die (lessons of history)

FERNAND Braudel (1902–1985), the great French historian and leader of the Annales school, wrote his A History of Civilizations as a textbook on world history for high school students in 1962. It was rejected by the French Ministry of Education because it did not conform to what bureaucrats wanted in a textbook. The ministry wanted "a prodigious mass of dates and events" but Braudel doubted whether any historian, "even those with photographic memories," could pass an examination concerning this "mass of often trivial facts one after another without rhyme or reason."

What Braudel wanted in a history textbook was one that drew from "a number of social sciences which study and explain the contemporary world and seek to make sense of its confusion." In 1962 and in 2022, this agenda for history seems relevant still.