Annaliste Paradigm? The Geohistorical Structuralism of Fernand Braudel

Abstract

ing from this description to draw out its analytic features, the passage might be phrased thus: Meteorological and biological systems interact so that some rhythms in the possible combinations of high temperature and high rainfall produce abundant crops while others produce little. (The geological character of the soil-calcareous or heavy with clay, for examplealso affects food production; Braudel omitted this factor, perhaps as a local variable.) The rain-plus-heat (and light) rhythm, occurring from late spring through summer to mid-fall, produces high yields. The rain-minus-heat (and light) rhythm, occurring from mid-fall through winter to late spring, produces low yields. The glorious skies of a Mediterranean summer accordingly signal a pattern of low food production, while the heavy clouds and regular summer rains of central India signal a pattern of high food production: these patterns represent two different forms-two transforms-of the same system of relations. Braudel did not use the word in this section, although his statements depend on an understanding of the relationship between meteorological and biological factors in a structural way. He aimed his narration not at this structure but at its concrete results, at the pattern and the results of the pattern in terms of human actions and reactions.56 He went on to emphasize that dry farming and irrigation have been used in Mediterranean lands since at least the sixth century B.C. to modify or entirely thwart the effects of this rhythm. In Braudel's terms, this long-enduring pattern of interaction among dry farming, irrigation, climate, and crops would presumably constitute a structure-a pattern of food production implying systems regulated not only by meteorological, geological, and biological factors but also by technological, marketing, political, and cultural factors that mentally and physically control agriculturalists' efforts. A structural analysis that reveals the interlacing of all of these systems almost inevitably stimulates reflexive perception of more patterns and subpatterns that affect the situations under study than were first supposed. Any historical situation consists of a system of patterns that implies a system of structures. Viewed as a system of patterns, a historical situation has a shape or configuration, usually depicted in structural analysis as a polarity between harmony and conflict. The more conflict or tension among the patterns making up the configuration, the greater the tendency for one or several patterns to change. 56 The unintended consequence of this emphasis on human actions and reactions is that in historiographical practice Braudel, who has championed the reconciliation of history with other social sciences, has actually widened the cleft between them by treating the difference between patterning and structuring approaches as a choice between good and bad methods. He has criticized as unsuited to historical inquiry what are, in effect, the structural methods of geographers and biologists, because these methods have seemed to him too rigid in their positing of scientific limits: Le danger meme serait de vouloir mettre en cause un domaine delimite une fois pour toutes. Que gologues, botanistes, geographes, et biogeographes procedent ainsi, c'est normal: plus ou moins grand, leur territoire est toujours bomre avec precision; is peuvent le l6turer de poteaux scientifiques, legitimement plantes. La ligne des Pyrenees, des Alpes, les montagnes de Crim&e et du Caucase, puis au Sud, le rebord de la grande plateforme rigide afro-asiatique, telles sont les bornes admises par les geologues. La Mediterranie (lst ed.), 139 (italics added). This content downloaded from 157.55.39.45 on Fri, 02 Sep 2016 04:42:08 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms