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Common paradigm of the 20^th century historians

Carlos Barros
University of Santiago de Compostela

Before asking ourselves where the history we historians make is going, it might be better to stop and elucidate where it actually comes from. Above and beyond the great historiographic Schools of the 20th Century, we historians come from such very different countries and with such very different historical specialities thet we find it hard to see what we have had, or indeed still have, in common, especially in times of fragmentation and uncertainty such as these.

The identity crisis history is currently going through thus makes it every more ugent for us to stop and take stock of the situation facing us at the end of the Century : the historians= common heritage is in desperate need of being put back together again and this task requires us to weigh up our collective successes and, more importantly, our collective failures in order to properly grasp the apparent dead-end we find ourselves in and in order for us to enter into the 21st Century both morally and scientifically rearmed. Basically, we must apply the method of history to the writing of history itself, which is a has until very recently been a far from habitual, not to say rare, practice on the part of historians.

The lack of studies, reflection and debate on historiography, the methodology and theory of history are the very features of the old, now questioned, common paradigm which helps understand both the difficulties we encounter when trying to understand it in bygone times as well as its more recent irreversible fall. Converting historians and their work, historiographic currents of thought and their crises, the values and practices of the trade into an object of scientific research (and debate), ie. knowing that what is said does not necessarily coincide with what one knows nor with what one does, putting our problem into context, is a need which is beginning to be sufficiently reflected on in the congresses, reviews and books. It stands as a symptom of a growing awareness on the part of the historians of the critical point we have arrived at.

From the history of science to historiography

The fact that the beliefs, practices and evolution of science remained practically unintelligible was a widespread problem until the history (or sociology) of science developed, vying with the philosophy of science to redefine the epistemological status of scientific knowledge. The history of the human and social sciences in general and of the history of history in particular was to cease to be an incidental literature in so far as they critically took on board the progress made by the history of science, which had already stated some time ago that scientists Aare little better than the quacks when it comes to characterizing the established bases of their field, their problems and their accepted methods[1]@.

The invisibility of the paradigms shared by the historians is, therefore, a problem which is also shared by the other sciences and Thomas S. Kuhn brilliantly solved this by defining the concept of the paradigm and thereby uncovering the crucial role played by the scientific community in validating scientific knowledge, whose paradigms are not eternal, but being instead subject to change via revolutionary breaking points which differentiate - rather too clearly - between periods of normal science and periods of extraordinary science, ie. crisis, debate and the replacing of old paradigms with new ones.

The application of Kuhn=s discoveries to the social and human sciences can be inferred from his own open debts towards history, sociology, social and epistemological psychology[2] when it comes to studying the natural sciences - this latter being his main object of analysis - and regarding the experiences of history and historiography themselves and, in short, regarding the maturity history has won for itself as a social science over the 20th Century : its very expansion implies the existence of a vigorous common paradigm.

Kuhn is a physican who turned historian in order to try to come to grips with the sciences of Nature : AAmazed, I became aware that history could be useful to the philosopher of science[3]@. He is proud of belonging to the North American History Association and not to the Philosophy Association, and he prides himself on the fact that his students want to go on to become historians rather than philosophers[4]. We should at least endevour to give back to history, and with arrears, that which Kuhn learned from history. Kuhn assures his critics that he works as a historian in order to find out more about epistemology[5]. Obviously, what we have here is quite a new cut of historian - even as far as New History goes - who does not look down on theory, taking it to be his final goal instead.

Initially, in order for it to be considered a science, history copied off classical, determinist physics, leaving behind concepts such as the change and subjectivity of the process of knowledge. Now, however, thanks to Kuhn physics is learning from old history (and also from Darwin) that scientific development is not cumulative, but progressing instead by means of Arevolutionary breaking points@. A parallel is sought between the historical revolutions in order to gain a clearer understanding of the scientific revolutions, ie. those moments when Aan old paradigm is replaced, wholly or in part, by another new and incompatible one[6]@. And the role played by the collective psyche is of great importance when it comes to the behaviour adopted by the scientific communities, both in the cumulative periods of normal science as well as in the critical periods when the paradigms shift. All in all, the the effect the external influences of the social and cultural factors have on the way the scientific communities evolve (notorious in the case of the social and human sciences) are on the whole quite far-fetched, although this is not to say they have no bearing whatever, indeed in his works. In fact, Kuhn comes to the conclusion that the evolution of the fully-fledged sciences comes about Arelatively independently of its social environment[7]@. His great contribution has been to highlight the role played by the scientific communities on the one hand and that played by the revolution of the paradigms on the other. It is for us, the general historians of society and the psyche, to supply the context and the synchrony.

In order to piece together a new history of science which would be neither linear nor cumulative, Kuhn makes use of a narrative concept of history, whilst at the same time rejecting the mere chronical and highlighting its explanatory nature (Anot only showing facts but also the relationships which exist between them@). Nor does he rule out the existence of laws of social conduct being applicable to history, although these Aare not essencial for its explanatory capacity@. Unlike physics, when once it has begun to be written the investigative process has already come to an end, Kuhn tells us that for history the moment of narration is crucial and is part and parcel of the research itself[8]. However, it was the structural-functional paradigm which held sway among historians in the 60s and 70s and not the narrative paradigm. And so the innovation proposed by Kuhn completely turns on its head both the established concept of history as well as the concept of science in general. Of course, we should be careful to distinguish between Kuhn=s narrative history with its explanatory and epistemological intentions and the well-known Positivist approach, that decrepit idea of history which our historian of science Adidn=t take too seriously@, [9] and which entails Aexamining texts, extracting the relevant facts and retelling them with literary flare, in a more or less chronological fashion@. This means that Kuhn=s narrative-explanatory history is, therefore, more a thing of the future of our discipline than of its past and comes together with the efforts of other philosophers such as Ricoeur and historians such as Lefebvre and Topolsky in order to give birth to a new narrative history.

Notions of the paradigm

For Kuhn, the word >paradigm= has two different meanings : a specific, exemplicative meaning on the one hand and another more general - and original - meaning on the other hand which refers to the commitments shared by any given scientific community[10]. This latter interpretation has been imposing itself upon the original and literal meaning which equates the paradigm with the model and the example (as in the case of the conjugations of regular verbs). The attempt made by the autor himself in 1969 to replace the wider meaning of paradigm of the notion of a disciplinary matrix[11] in order to avoid any possible confusions and to claim back the plural nature of the theoretical, methodological and normative elements which enjoy the concensus of the specialists, met with failure because precisely what is so very revolutionary about Kuhn=s contribution is the very fact that the term >paradigm= can be used to cover such a wide range of ideas, being at one and the same time both the disciplinary matrix and the exemplative reference point. For the sake of clarity, here we will single out the plural paradigm (the shared paradigms) which more or less explicitly cover the majority of those people who belong to any given professional or scientific speciality, by adding the adjective Acommon@.

We can, therefore, assume that the general, common paradigm of any one scientific community will also contain a series of inter-related individual paradigms, among which the models/examples are of major importance, these being scientific entities which offer solutions to concrete problems and which are universally accepted, eg. Foucualt=s Pendulum used to demonstrate the movement of the Earth. These examplative paradigms work through similarity and emulation and are of great importance in teaching a discipline and in introducing research. The exemplative models shared throughout history boil down to be classical works of each respective discipline, subdiscipline or theme, although they are less important when it comes to solving typical problems in phyisics because shared rules are more common among professional historians[12]. With that proviso, we can say that Ait is the posession of a common paradigm which turns a group of people into a scientific community and without which it would just be a group of disjointed members@[13]. In the same way that no scientist can build up his field of activity from the bottom up, without concensual paradigms there can be no true science in the sense of a collective piece of work. The use of the concept of the paradigm as defined by Kuhn is becoming ever more widely accepted in the run up to the new Century, both in the natural and the social sciences, in academic circles as well as in the highbrow language of the mass media.

A scientific community is made up of those professionals who practice a given speciality, who have received a similar education and who have read the same books, who teach their successors in a collegial manner and who keep up a certain level of internal communication through societies, congresses, reviews as well as other less formal means, all of which is based upon their unanimity of opinions concerning their profession, although this unanimity is of course also rather relative owing to their diversity[14]. For Kuhn, the members of any one given scientific community are Athe sole judge and jury for the work produced by that same community[15]@. Shared paradigms are only shared in a covert rather than in any overt way, they are more theoretical than practical ; they cannot be precisely pinpointed, nor of course are they exempt from internal disagreement and conflict. What we are dealing with are accepted beliefs (their stability means we can talk of values) which allow the members of the community to select, evaluate, criticize and interpret. The elements which make up these paradigms are drawn both from theory and from practice, from the particular discipline in question as well as from other disciplines, from scientific as well as from common knowledge, etc[16]. These values held in common by a whole scientific speciality differ from one community to the next and from one period to another[17]. They have their own peculiarities and their own histories which must be examined in order to overcome the pigeon-holing which afflicts academic life, ie. that ethnocentric, even egocentric, illusion that nothing exists beyond the confines of the ivory tower of the School, of the field of knowledge, of the line of research or the research team and beyond that individual >ego=, as if everything outside the particular, and safe, field of activity were nothing more than discord, confusion, eclecticism, etc. Objectively speaking, today the implicit recognition of the existence of the active shared paradigms, was, and to some extent still is, more important than belonging to any given School, speciality, national tradition, philosophy or political creed and this means that we historians must engage in an act of both moral and scientific humility.

Scientific communities are not isolated from one another ; they maintain relationships of inclusion and inter-dependency. Contemporary historians consider themselves to belong together with the social scientists, who in turn feel themselves to belong with the scientists as a whole (headed by the natural sciences). The paradigm which holds sway in the natural sciences conditions the paradigm of the social and human sciences, which in turn determines the historians= common paradigm. And these influences also work in the opposite sense, and increasingly more so in fact, Cf. Kuhn and history vis à vis physics.

The existence of a common paradigm does not, however, normally imply a common theory. This is what Kuhn has to say about theories ; Asuch traditional constructions are both too rich and too poor to be able to represent what the scientistis have in mind when they talk about subscribing to a particular theory[18]@. What is more, very few social sciences have a well thought-out and widely accepted theory to back them up[19]. Without a doubt, the Marxist theory of history has been the most widely accepted theory amongst 20th Century historians. It would, however, be excessive - and in fact untrue - to take this to be the common theory of something as wide-reaching as the Annales, Historical Materialism, and Neo-positivism which are the three traditions which came together after the Second World War to form our common, diverse and plural paradigm.

Values can be shared by people despite the fact that they may apply them differently because the common paradigm has an inbuilt tolerance towards individual and collective deviation[20]. Any agreement on the basic aspects of what the profession is understood to be is not, therefore, synonymous with having identical criteria[21]. All in all, diversity is the norm and not the exception for a truly functional scientific paradigm because normal science cannot be reduced to one single, monolithic, unified venture ; Alooking at all of the fields at the same time, it looks more like a disjointed structure with very little coherence between its different parts@[22]. This flexibility of the paradigm was not invented by Kuhn, but comes out clearly as the result of any sociological-historical approach to the real scientific communities which are not governed by rigid rules and theories but by shared paradigms which, it is true, must maintain a certain degree of coherence and compatibility for them to be able to guarantee a common, working framework, thus ensuring that the unavoidable polemics do not affect praxis in the periods of normal science[23]. And this explains why history and sociology of science have thrown out this false, oversimplistic, all too common alternative with its theoretical rigidity and its vulgar eclecticism. It also goes without saying that the unity, flexibility and diversity which can be seen should not be taken to imply weakness ; one needs only think about just how much effort it takes scientists to give up their paradigmatic beliefs to see that this is so. To sum up then, the existence of a common paradigm does not imply only one possible reading ; Ait can, therefore, determine several different traditions of normal science at one and the same time which come together without them having to be coexistent@[24]. In order to grasp this properly one has to think in a new way ; we must stop fooling ourselves if we are to overcome a wide-held Afalse belief@ about the way our discipline really works.

Our common ground

How do the complex contents of unity-plurality of the notion of the paradigm apply to history ? As we go through the exam pieces of produced in by professors before they are able to take up their lecturing chairs, we quite often come across joint references both to the Annales School as well as to Historical Materialism (with the appropriate dose of Positivist respect for the sources), ritual quotations from important authors and works, whereby what the would-be professor intends to do is to provide a certain degree of diversity in order to satisfy the foreseeably diverse jury formed by the drawing of lots*. These teaching projects are, then, one way of approaching the historians= common paradigm. But every teacher once was a student too and s/he learnt the bases of his/her subject in the textbooks[25], lecture theatres, obligatory readings, seminars and practical classes. The jargon of the particular discipline, catchphrases such as Athe historian is not there to judge historical facts@, recognition of the most widely accepted professionals and of the research and syntheses held up to be Classics, a negative or positive attitude to a particular interpretation, the subject matter and the method of research ; all of these are things which s/he learns in the history faculties, both inside and outside the classroom. The underlying paradigm can be seen reflected in the contents of the courses and in the choice of the backup materials used to teach these courses, all of which are pretty much of a muchness. In their lessons, professors and teachers spread and defend the established paradigm, even in times of crisis, even above and beyond their own personal opinions, which do occasionally come out in the originality of their research, although this is certainly not always the case. Over the years, the very many translations of sytheses and monographical studies (mainly translated either from French or from English) have had the effect of bringing together the national and international common ground for those historians who gravitate around the principal Schools and traditions, although also affecting others too. The very scarce but invaluable articles and books on historiography, and the methodology and theory of history (in spite of everything, the philosophy of history still tends to remain the preserve of philosophers rather than of historians), such as Apologie pour l=Histoire ou Métier d=Historien by Marc Bloch (Paris, 1949) our What is History ? by Edward H. Carr (London, 1961), republished time and time again in all of the main languages of the Western World, round of the mechanisms which bring about the homogenization and spread of the paradigm shared by 20th Century historians. And, it is worth stressing this once again, this makes itself known more through practical work rather than through theory, all of which makes it extremely difficult to identify despite the fact that it is so very efficient as a means of exemplification and gaining general approval.

The common paradigm is covertly present in the manuals intended for history students as well as in other sythesis-type history books. These works show the final product not the tools used to produce it, because historiographic concepts, methods and values are not talked about and no mention is normally made, therefore, of the historiographic revolutions. Could the intention here be to make the history of history look linear and cumulative, which is precisely what Kuhn argued against in the natural sciences[26] ? While on the one hand 20th Century history is part and parcel of the Enlightened paradigm of cumulative science progressing in a linear fashion, on the other hand, the texts reflecting on historiography tend to sway in the opposite direction by highlighting the historiographic splits and papering over the thread running through it, that continuity (be it diachronic or synchronic) which runs through the various different Schools which amounts to nothing less than covering up a common heritage[27]. This is what gives rise to the lack of precedents and the difficulties we encounter when we try to reconstruct a widely-shared asset with new bases which we usually refer to as the science of history, scientific history, history as a social science, the established paradigm in professional and academic circles in the Western World since the mid-Twentieth Century and which in a mere matter of five years= time will have become the shared paradigm of the historians of the Alast Century@.

The Twentieth Century Historiographic Revolution.

To a large extent, the 20th Century historiographic revolution toppled that narrative, event-orientated, political, biographical history, positivist, descriptive and historicizing history handed down from the 19th Century : that so-called superficial history from above. It boosted a certain degree of hegemony shared between the Annales School and Historical Materialism[28], which although they had been pushed to the fringes of Old History they had not been completely shelved as such[29]. It set up a common and varied paradigm which was a part of, abeit not always knowingly, and drew its strength and philosophical insipration from an Objectivist conception of science which had taken on a new leash of life at that time. This opened the way for Positivism to continue both directly[30] and, more especially, indirectly : that vague and certainly ambiguous influence which has been nevertheless much more widely accepted in practice by New Historians than it would at first seem and above all more than they let tell[31]. Otherwise, how could we explain the ease with which the traditional historiographic genres have been taken up anew over the last ten years ? Empiricism is by no means something peculiar to the Anglo-American world, but is instead a general trend running through the whole of historical science when compared with the theoretical concerns of sociology (from Comte, through Weber and finally the historical sociologists), of anthropology (Lévi-Strauss) or even psychology (Jean Piaget). Nor is this disregard for theory in favour of induction something peculiar to the Annales School[32] (the cause but also the effect of a paradigmatic revolution the course of which was strew with hurdles), but rather a minimum common denominator shared by professional historians[33]. If we refuse to acknowledge this Positivist, Inductivist and Objectivist undercurrent, we will be unable to understand the failures and limitations of the joint Annales-Marxist paradigm, nor will we be able to properly rate its successes. What is more, is it not true that Positivism, Historical Materialism and the Annales School are all part of one and the same progressive project which began with the Enlightenment ? It is the contiguity of these three paradigms which made it easy for them to funcion as communicating vessels, whilst their differences allowed for the transfer of values, all of which finally resulted in a balanced situation.

As we stand at the end of this Century, what we quite rightly only consider to be nothing more than a partial vistory of the historians= first great common paradigm, brought together in one scientific community[34], was actually a giant step when compared with the previous ongoing situation in the Nineteenth Century, when Positivism and nationalistic Romanticism, Materialism and Idealism and amateurs and the first professional historians fought it out among themselves without ever coming to a historiographic agreement[35]. A failure to appreciate the scientific revolution heralded in with the advent of New History would be tantamount to stabbing ourselves in the back[36]. After the end of the Second World War, history came of age as an academic discipline, the process of professionalization it had been involved in came to a close and it took up a prominant position among the social sciences, gaining extraordinary recognition on the part of the public at large, riding on the back of the oportunism of the times which tended towards technological and economic progress and the subsequent transformation of society. This let loose great energies which, even continuing up until the present day, boosted historical research which stressed the importance of thematic and methodological innovation. We could even go so far as to say that all of this means that the New History we have been practicing is an goal fulfilled despite the fact that it is its death throes today. It is hard to say what would be worse : to wipe the slates clean by sweeping away the heritage which we have inherited or to stick our heads in the sand in the face of the irreversible crisis the 20th Century common historiographic paradigm is in. We firmly believe that both risks can be avoided if only we grow accustomed to thinking in a new, complex way.

Shared and Limited Hegemony

Fortunately, the historians= common and plural paradigm of the latter half of the 20th Century is composed of three relative parts, three rival paradigms, all of which operate at one and the same time, namely: the Annales School, Marxism and Neo-positivism[37]. And whilst it is true to say that a joint hegemony does indeed exist between the Annales School and Marxism[38], we must relativize this statement somewhat : whilst it does take centre stage it does not fill the whole stage and the influence brought to bear by the surviving Empiricism, superbly moulded to fit in with the new circumstances, contradicts the Anti-positivist intentions of the two great Schools which tend to dominate the World to such an extent that it would be a grave mistake not to take its presence into consideration, and not merely in the rearguard of our profession. The shared values as regards the thematic, methodological and theoretical innovations are supplied by the Annales School and Marxism as follows : the Neo-positivist contribution is more involved with the generally valid concept of historical science and with the huge prestige which Empiricism has continued to enjoy in the teaching and research praxis of all historians. Positivism is able to form a part of the current historiographic concensus thanks to the Inductivist element which lies within all of us and which makes us say, for example, that there are Agood and bad@ historians. The very concept we have of the common paradigm refers more to the practice of the profession than to its theory and in this field it is hard to avoid the usual pinch of Positivism which, centred, as we have already seen, on techniques and methods, adapts itself quite well to a whole range of different paradigms and theories precisely thanks its disdain for commitments to paradigms and theories.

The masters and young historians of the Sixties (and of the Seventies in Spain and elsewhere) were traditionalist and Postivist historians who instilled their pupils, who in turn went on to do the same with their pupils (in keeping with the ancient hierarchical reproduction of academic knowledge) with a taste for erudition, a belief in the impartiality of the historian and a wariness towards the theories and philosophies of history[39]. Even today, how often do we hear the members of a jury with an Annnales bent, or even a Marxist bent, criticize doctoral theses for their lack of sources and for the bibliography used, demanding erudition even above originality and innovation, interpretation and history as a problem, thus twisting the true meaninmg of what a Athesis@ should really be ? The contribution made by Positivism to the 20th century historiographic paradigm is basically its interest in archives and history=s so-called supporting sciences[40]; its interest in sources and a critique of the sources ; in dates and facts ; in cases and analysis ; in techniques and specialization. Furthermore, it is Positivism which also won the seal of academic approval for New History. Not only Marxism, but also the Annales School were born on the fringes of university power ; how else would either movement have been able to become the dominant School in the universities of many countries had they not enjoyed the tacit support of the traditional sectors of the academic Establishment ? Academicism and belonging to a university corporation lead to a whole set of attitudes, hierarchies and rituals which form a part of the values which historians hold in common[41], even above and beyond individual Schools and even ideologies[42].

The paradigmatic balance between these three historiographic currents of thought implies the existence of mutual influences, recognitions and concessions which all but rarely come to the surface in any overt way. But this is perfectly understandable, because up until the Seventies, the Annales historians made favourable gestures towards Historical Matetrialism[43], and the French[44] and English[45] Marxists also in turn showed favourable inclinations towards their counterparts from the Annales School. In fact, at this time both Schools seemed mutually compatible[46] and complementary. For instance, the Annales School had always been more interested in methodolgy, structures and medieval and modern history, whereas Historical Materialsm had, on the other hand, been more interested in theory, revolutions and contemporary history. Whilst the Annales School had a greater bearing in the countries of Southern Europe, Marxist historiography made a greater impact in Northern Europe[47]. Without a shadow of a doubt, the one strong link which binds both tendencies together is their head-on opposition to the old, Positivist, conservative history[48]. The major concession made by the Empiricist historians, admitting as they do the public predominance of the great Schools whilst not ceasing to practice a classical and erudite history (although it is true that many of them changed ; political and event-orientated history for economic and social history), was the fact that, unlike Neo-positivist philosophers such as Popper, they did not strike out against Marxism.

The intertwining of the three paradigms/traditions means that, as everything is in each part, each of them takes in, adapts and represents the common paradigm in its own particular way. However, we should undeline the major contribution made by the Annales School to the common heritage of Western historians in the Fifties and Sixties[49], coinciding with the generation of the second Annales lead by Fernand Braudel, which, in the period between the Wars, involved the coming together of the innovative and splitting forces of Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre with traditional history. For better or for worse[50], owing to its radicalness, France was set to become the epicentre of the 20th Century historiographic revolution, with no other country coming close, fighting against and cornering the old historicizing history[51]. Not even our Marxist historiography was as brusque and sweeping when it came to changing paradigms, continuing, for instance, to foster and/or accept a political history which the Annales refused on principle[52]. Thanks to its innovative approaches, the Annales secured itself a central position within the dominant historiographic paradigm which helped to hold together the diversity within the paradigm, ranging from Neo-positivism to Marxism. Historiographic convergence came about in different ways in different countries ; in Great Britain, for example, this bonding role played by New History turned it into the equivalent of new Marxist historiography.

In 1967, Pierre Vilar said that after fifty years of rejection, Ahistorical research is now going in the direction Marx had set it in@, and all thanks to historians such as Labrousse to name but one, steeped in Marxist thinking, although they did not always like to admit as much out loud[53]. Would it be fair to generalize this Marxism to cover all of the First, and more importantly the Second Annales ? The answer to this question is >yes= in the sense that the new French historians considered, and indeed most still hold this to be true even today, that they had taken on board the scientifically valid teaching of Historical Materialism. It is common practice among contemporary historians, and also among some with a certain conservative bent too, to recognize the contribution made by Historical Materialism to the construction of scientific history whilst not actually thinking of themselves as Marxists. This is the most striking proof of the fact that a Marxist element does indeed exits within the common paradigm. The professional prestige of the Marxist historians corroborates the general feeling of everyone being in the same boat together, in spite of the fact that they research different themes and quite often from slightly different angles. The admission of Historical Materialism into the historiographic academy where it occupied and still occupies an envious position of power (which means we can all but dismiss it out of hand scientifically), serves to underline the autonomy of science with regards to politics[54]. If the truth be told, a large part of the spread of Marxist concepts in our universities has come about in an indirect way as a consequence of the coparticipation of Materialistic theory and practice of history within the paradigm common to the social and human sciences. In exchange, Marxism supplies the hegemonic ensemble with progressive credibility in the same way that the Annales School supplies the prestige of renewal and with the Positivist historians supplying the academic image, particularly at a time when the new economic and social historians were entering into the Establishment in the Sixties and Seventies.

Spanish historiography is characterized by the fact that it has not developed a School of its own and by the fact that it was a latecomer[55] to the 20th Century historiographic renewal, due both to the hiatus caused by the Francoist régime as well as the same old academic lethargy, and this makes our country an excellent illustration of the triple origin of the common paradigm which established itself in the 60s and 70s, some ten to twenty years later than in France. Throughout 1975, a group of young, and some less young historians wrote about the situation and perspectives of history in the Boletín Informativo de la Fundación Juan March, where they clearly define the three contributions which either actively and passively spurred on the historiographic renewal[56], namely : the Annales (Antonio Eiras Roel and José Ángel García de Cortázar) ; Marxism (Juan José Carreras and Antonio Elorza) and traditional historians (Luis Suárez and José María Jover), whose writings[57] show a certain respect and openness towards the international avant-garde currents of thought. Unlike what happened in the case of the sociologists, philosophers, economists and political analysts, with the passing of time and in spite of the Marxist crisis, Historical Materialism has managed to continue to exert an influence in the field of history; Aon the whole, historians continue to hold that the main theses of Historical Materialsm are a good methodological tool@[58]. This statement might seem somewhat excessive in absolute terms coming as it did from a Spanish philosopher in 1991, but it is nevertheless true[59] in comparative terms and we should ask ourselves why. In spite of the the fact that the discipline is in crisis and split up into different fragments, the fact that the three-tiered common paradigm has continued to be a basic historiographic reference point upto the present day is an essential part of the reply.

In the period following the end of the Second World War[60], while the epicentre of renewal was strengthening itself in France, the Anglo-American world, and England in particular, still clung on to its respect for the old political history[61]. A social history with a Marxist bent was not to set in in the face of the dominant Positivism (which became even more accute from 1900 onwards) until as late as the 60s and 70s with the backing of the Annales School[62], and in 1984 Peter Burke admitted that, in spite of the rise of the new economic, social and cultural history, political history still remained Athe most densely populated@ sector, which began to integrate itself into new history with the very early developments of a social history of politics, a new political history[63]. We were to have to wait until the Seventies for Anglo-American social history to spread its international influence when (structuralist) Marxism began to die away in France and the Mediterranean countries[64]. The main problem encountered in the 80s revolves around the weakness of the common paradigm, subject to both internal dissention (an increase in the rivalries between its three component parts) as well as coming under criticism from ouside and this context meant that the brilliant (Cf. the works of Thompson) yet late[65] fruits of Anglo-American Marxism were unable to impose themselves and thus make up for the decline of the Annales influence (which also ended up by having an effect on it