Fernand Braudel was a preeminent French historian and historiographer. He studied history at the Sorbonne; taught the subject in Algeria (1923–1932), Paris (1932–1935), and Brazil (1935–1937); and was appointed to the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE, Section VI), Paris, in 1937. As a German prisoner of war from 1940 to 1945, he wrote from memory his thesis, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II (The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean at the Time of Philippe II, 1949, 1st English ed., 1972). It immediately established [Page 131]Braudel's reputation, his place in the French Annales tradition, and led in 1949 to his appointment at the Collège de France.

The journal, Annales d'histoire économique et sociale, founded in 1929, changed its name, emphasizing its scope, ...