Chapter 285 284 [Founder of Yearbook School]

The city of Strasbourg, belonging to the Alsace region, is located on the border between Germany and France.

The historical changes here are very complicated. It originally belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, then merged into France, then occupied by Germany, and was taken back by France after World War I.

Friends with a good memory should still have an impression of the Versailles Treaty in the middle school history textbook. One of the clauses is: Germany ceded the Alsace-Lorraine region to France.

Lucien Favere was a professor at the University of Strasbourg at this time.

He is currently preparing to launch a magazine called "Yearbook of Economic and Social History". From the perspective of the future, this magazine created the Yearbook School, changed the face of the world history circle, and made outstanding contributions to the development of modern history.

Well, it sounds awesome, but at this time Lucien Favere is still "non-mainstream".

In the European historiography circle in the 1920s, the mainstream faction was "new historiography" - positivist historiography.

This school of historiography emerged in the late 19th century, when the natural sciences made explosive progress, and scientists made important achievements one after another. The whole western society has fallen into the infinite worship of science, and historians are no exception.

Ever since, some people proposed to apply the methods of natural science to historical research. Through various psychological analysis and attention to the organic connection between things, it is used to reveal the laws hidden behind historical activities.

To put it more bluntly, it is to divide all history into three major elements: "geographical time", "social time" and "personal time". Historians use natural science thinking to sum up a set of "scientific formulas", which can be applied to the "formulas" when studying history.

Positivist historiography has its advanced nature, which promotes the traditional historical materials to eliminate the false and preserve the true, and makes historical research more rigorous. But the limitations are also great. If historians continue to do this, historiography will move closer to natural science, ignoring the uniqueness of historical research.

Since the First World War, the worlds of thought, history, and literature in Europe have been filled with decadence, confusion, and rebellion, and a variety of new schools have been brewing.

The voice of questioning positivist historiography is getting louder and louder, but it cannot be overthrown for the time being. Lucien Favere is an active member of the opponents.

"Have the magazine manuscripts been confiscated yet?" Mark Bloch asked as he walked into the office.

Lucien Favere said with a smile: "There is another copy in the mail, and it may be received in the next few days."

Mark Bloch said in distress: "I have contacted five publishers and distributors, and no one is willing to help distribute our magazine."

"It's normal," Lucien Favere said metaphorically, "Positivist historiography is a windmill, and we are like Don Quixote who are overwhelmed, and it is difficult to get the attention of the mainstream group."

"Then what?" asked Marc Bloch.

Lucien Favere said: "Go to Paris, I have dealt with little Louis of Hachette publishing house, maybe he can help publish magazines."

On the weekend, the two compiled the contents of the first issue of the magazine, and went to Paris together with the rough printed sample issue.

...

The 1920s were called the "Crazy 20s" by the Western world.

Especially on the French side, the bad situation of World War I has ended, and the economy has fully recovered in the 1920s, showing a dazzling prosperity.

But the spiritual trauma brought about by the war is engraved in everyone's bones. So rich people enjoy themselves to their heart's content, which means that they are drunk now when they have wine. Artists, thinkers, and writers, on the other hand, rebelled against tradition and created messy new genres.

The poor people don't care about making a revolution. Although their lives are more difficult than before, the rest of their lives make people cherish life even more. Moreover, by the end of the 1920s, the comprehensive recovery of the social economy also gave the people at the bottom a little hope.

This seems to be a prosperous age!

Lucien Favere and Marc Bloch were walking on the streets of Paris, watching the busy scene of prosperity, and their mood became much better.

Since Hachette Publishing House was in the western suburbs of Paris, it was too late to catch up, so they simply stayed at the hotel.

It was already mid-afternoon, Feffer was bored, so he proposed to go to the bookstore, and Bloch readily agreed.

Like the situation in the United States, the French publishing industry in the 1920s was also in a period of prosperity, and the number of books published every year was close to 20,000.

Since it was the weekend, there were a lot of people visiting the bookstore.

Feffer went straight to the bookshelf of literature and history, and as soon as he approached, he saw a whole row of new books: "The Rise of Great Powers", "Guns, Bacteria and Steel", "Chrysanthemum and Knife", "Goddess", "Dog Officer" .

A total of five works, except for martial arts novels, almost all of Zhou Hexuan's works are here.

The French guy is having a good time, and he is not afraid that he will not be able to sell it!

Feffer was so impressed with Zhou Hexuan that he also solemnly recommended some fragments of "The Rise of Great Powers" to his students to read.

As soon as he saw the author's name on the spine, Feffer immediately took it off in surprise.

On the title page of "The Rise of Great Powers", there is an author profile written by Le Figaro reporter Le Goff, and there is even a bust photo of Zhou Hexuan: Zhou Hexuan, Chinese, born in 1898. In his childhood, he lived in Southeast Asia and studied English with American missionaries. When he was a teenager, he wandered in the United States and attended many universities. From 1916 to 1926, he traveled around the world, visiting libraries and archives of various countries to search for materials. He is now the president of Peking University, a Chinese institution of higher learning, famous in the Far East for his outstanding history and literary talents.

"Oh, God! He's only 30 years old, so young." Favell couldn't help but exclaim.

"What's the matter?" Bloch came over and asked.

Feiffer pointed to the row of works on the bookshelf and said with a smile: "China Zhou's works."

"The China week when I wrote "The Rise of Great Powers"?" Bloch said pleasantly.

The remnants of "The Rise of Great Powers" have long been circulated in Europe, and scholars who study history have more or less heard of it. And the views on history expressed in this book coincide with Feiffer and Bloch.

The Annals School founded by the two advocates the integration of various sciences such as geography, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology and linguistics, and combines them to study history.

Isn't this the narrative method of "The Rise of Great Powers"?

Therefore, decades later, the world historians generally believe that before Feffer and Bloch founded the Yearbook School, the Yearbook School already had a masterpiece, namely "The Rise of Great Powers".

For this reason, Zhou Hexuan is known as the "Pioneer of the Yearbook School" and "Founder of the Yearbook School".

But there are also different views. Many historians believe that "The Rise of Great Powers" is not a work of the Yearbook School, but a mature work of modern history, which is a work that completely transcends the times.

Feffer and Bloch only casually flipped through a few pages, and each went to check out with a set of works by Zhou Hexuan.

Feiffer even decided to revise the content of the first issue of the magazine and include a review article on "The Rise of Great Powers". The main purpose of their establishment of the magazine is to overthrow the current popular positivist historiography, and Zhou Hexuan's "Rise of Great Powers" is the most powerful weapon.