Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America free essay sample

Benjamin Franklin writes about the Native American people and their way of life. In Benjamin Franklin’s essay he shows that the Native American people are far from savages. He explains how they are indeed civilized people. He says â€Å"perhaps, if we examine the manners of different nations with the impartiality, we should find no people so rude, as not to have some remains of rudeness. The reason the Native Americans were called â€Å"savages† was because their rules of common civility, religion, laws and culture were different from the American culture and being that we were just socializing we did not understand their way of life. Franklin wanted people to know that the Native Americans were far from â€Å"savages† he in fact went on to express how they were and still are regular human beings. He explained how the Indian men were the backbone of their culture. The young Indian men were the warriors and hunters, the older Indians were counselors. We will write a custom essay sample on Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page He said â€Å"for all their government was a counsel of the sages; there was no force, there was no prisons, no officers to compel obedience, or inflict punishment. † They governed their own community. He explained how the women would dress the food, nurse and raise the children, running the household. It was the woman’s duty to imprint and communicate it to their children being there was no writings. They had their own way to interpret and communicate. This was the way they preserved information and traditions in their culture. In 1744 the government of Virginia and the Six Nations came to an agreement with the commissioners from Virginia and spoke to the chief Indians telling them in a college will be established in Williamsburg with paid funding for the education of young Indians. All the six nations had to do was send a half a dozen of their young indians to that college and the government of Virginia would of provided all means and they were instructed to learn from the white people. The Indians were always taught to be â€Å"polite† in any situation and show respect by taking time to consider any important matter. It took the Indians one day to respond to the government of Virginia, it was explained that some of their young people were sent to college in the Northern Provinces he says â€Å" they were instructed in all your sciences; but, when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either the cold or hunger, knew neither how t build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy, spoke our language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, nor counselors; they were totally good for nothing. He goes on to decline their offer with great respect to them and asks â€Å"if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care of their education, instruct them in all we know, and make MEN of them. Franklin said â€Å"the politeness of these savages in conversation is indeed carried to excess, since it does not permit them to contradict or deny the truth of what is asserted in their presence. Of course religion is one of the most important factors in any culture. From the beginning Christians tried to push their beliefs on the Native Americans, even though it was no good their beliefs were all so strong and that it was natural. A Swedish Minister gave a great short speech of Christianity, afterwards the Indian orator shared some main aspects of their own religion. The good missionary was appalled and disgusted by the story and called them idle tales. The Indian replied â€Å"my brother, it seems your friends have not done you justice in your education; they have not well instructed you in the rules of common civility. You saw that we, who understand and practice those rules, believed all your stories; why do you refuse to believe ours? † Franklin showed us in this essay the hospitality and politeness of the Indians. The word of an Indian, who said â€Å"if a man enters one of our cabin we dry him if he is wet, we warm him if he is cold, we allay his hunger and thirst; we demand nothing in return.  And if I enter any home in Albany and ask for food or drink, they won’t give me anything without money in return† It just shows how different two cultures work, while existing one near each other and not have the chance to avoid the influence of the other society.

4 Logical Fallacies

4 Logical Fallacies 4 Logical Fallacies 4 Logical Fallacies By Guest Author Anyone who tries to argue a point is obligated to support assertions with well-reasoned evidence in the form of facts, statistics, illustrations and to support that assertion with reasonableness and logic. There are, however, several very common pitfalls- generally labeled fallacies in reasoning or logical fallacies- waiting for the unwary: 1. Argumentum ad hominem: essentially, an argument or attack on a person rather than the person’s idea. For example, a nationally-televised political commentator, who happened to get his start in show business as a comedian, spoke out against the â€Å"Don’t ask, don’t tell† policy, which is a way of circumventing the prohibition against homosexuals serving in the military but keeping that policy in force. One of the proponents of the policy said, â€Å"What could he possibly know about this? He’s a comedian!† Instead of focusing on whether the policy itself is good or bad, the speaker launched an attack on the person whose views he didn’t like, which set up a false target and ignored the real issue of disagreement. 2. Non sequitur: literally, â€Å"it does not follow.† During a campaign speech, one candidate said to the audience, â€Å"If we can land men on the moon, we can find a cure for cancer.† Landing men on the moon, of course, was a triumph of technology, skill, intellect and collective will, but the success of that endeavor has no logical connection to the effort it might take to conquer a disease as complicated and multi form as cancer. In other words, the ability to cure cancer does not follow logically from the ability to land men on the moon. 3. Post hoc: propter hoc- Latin for â€Å"after this, therefore because of it.† A simple explanation of this fallacy in logic might go like this: â€Å"I came down with a cold this morning. Last night, I went to a concert. I must have caught the cold at the concert.† The essential problem is that there is no logical causal connection between going to the concert and catching a cold. 4. Begging the question: offering as evidence something that needs to be proved is begging the question. Arguing that the car industry in the US is the best in the world, for example, a speaker might say, â€Å"Everyone knows that America makes the best cars in the world.† Although this statement might be true, it is not self-evidently true, and to be more than an assertion, such as statement would need to be supported with reasonable evidence. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the General category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Among vs. AmongstStarting a Business Letter with Dear Mr.

Analysis And Appraisal Of Primark’s Performances

Analysis And Appraisal Of Primarks Performances Growth and survival are very often the majors’ objectives that guide businesses. Running a business is today and more than ever a risky venture because of the uncertainty of the environment and the strong competition that exist within markets. Organisations have to always come up with new strategies that will help them to achieve superior performances in order to stay in the competition or take competitive advantages. International organisations need therefore to strive more than the others to achieve high performances due to the globalisation effects. Last two years, achieving superior performances was not an easy task due to the economic crisis, leading businesses to be more concern about their survival rather than anything else. The retail sector in the UK was particularly affected by lower purchasing power of customers and many companies of the industry were fighting for their future. It was in this particular context of crisis that Primark one of the most recognise high street brand stand out, increasing their market share and achieving superior performance that made the headlines inside and outside the country. What were the strategies behind these outstanding performances? The present report will critically analyse and appraise Primark performances and the strategies used in order to achieve them. BACKGROUND Founded four decades ago in Ireland, Primark (also branded as Penneys in the Ireland Republic) is a clothing retailer operating in the European continent. The company which is a subsidiary of Associated British Foods plc (ABF) which also owns grocery brands such as Twinning and Silver spoon have an estimated total of 192 stores and operated in several European countries like the UK, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium. Since its creation, Primark come a long way to become as today one of the most favoured place to shop by women and men in the UK. The mission of the company quoted directly from ABF website can be extract ed from this statement â€Å"The mission of Primark is to supply quality clothing at prices perceived to offer real value†. Simply said, Primark mission is to make people look good at a lowest cost. This concept of value chain clothing has been one of the main drivers of Primark success over the decades. From its creation the company used a winning formula that is based on a competitive pricing model associated to a fast changing on the fashion pattern. The past decades saw an increase in number of high street brand that offer fashionable products adapted from the catwalk look at affordable prices and Primark was among those brands. A shift of the consumers behaviours toward value lead Primark to increase the number of its store over the decades in order to adapt with the shoppers pattern. A significant increase of this growth has also been an increase of the size of the stores with the average size rising from 16,000 sqft to 30,000 sqft. The opening of a 70,000 sqft store in a high profile place like Oxford Street boosted the Brand image as the UK leader of the value retailing. Also the significant amount invested by ABF in the opening of new stores and the extension of the existing ones helped Primark to achieve a massive transformation going from being a low price-brand with tertiary locations to become the leader of the value retailing in the UK. The recent downturn economic leading to consumers to be price conscious helped certainly the company to continue its growth and to report an increase of 20% in the 2009 profit. However the company was also the centre of a scandal in 2008 concerning the use of children as workers in its factories in Asia as well as the exploitation of overseas workers. Some critics even said Primark were able to achieve outstanding financial performance partially because of above factors that helped them to keep their production costs as low as possible.

Article involving computer-related technology Essay

Article involving computer-related technology - Essay Example With the help of cloud computing, information sharing and collaboration becomes easy and inexpensive. Cloud computing is the new wave to technology that is sweeping many corporations. Cloud computing is now used by companies as a means of keeping their data. Cloud computing has made it easier for employees to connect with other employees of the company in different companies. They can work together in the same time frame on the same task by cloud computing. For example as the article states that â€Å"An accountant in India chats with her colleague in New York as they work on the same spreadsheet at the same time. A team of designers around the world meets on a single document in the cloud to plan their next product.† Companies also spend millions of dollar each year for the creating proprietary data and protecting them. Despite this, companies find cloud computing economic. This is because it provides them with cost-savings in hardware, software and energy usage. It is also provides them higher productivity and efficiency. Cloud computing has given a platform to smaller companies in level with the multinationals. This is because all the companies now have the same facilities to advertise themselves whether they are giant corporations or small firms. With all these advantages of cloud computing, the main issue that cloud computing still needs to address is security. As the technology is still in its initial stages, developments are taking place in order to make it more secure. Girouard ,Dave. Google’sCloud. May 6, 2008. Forbes.com. Retrieved September 2, 2008 from

Influence of Social Networking Sites on Relationships Essay

Influence of Social Networking Sites on Relationships - Essay Example The essay "Influence of Social Networking Sites on Relationships" discusses the influence of social networking sites on relationships. A social networking site is a form of media of the digital age that helps people in the development of communities and networks. Some of the most popular examples include Facebook, Twitter, and Orkut. The system of kinship includes people who have close relationships with each other or those who are living as a unit or family. We create our own definition of family. We can decide to add and not add people depending on whether we trust them or consider them family. In this way, we actually go beyond defining kinship as just blood relationships and add such relationships to the definition that leaves a great impact on our lives. Some people believe that close relationships fall into the definition of kinship whereas some people believe that only a blood relationship is real kinship. Today, anthropology is heading towards forming new forms of kinship. Fo r example, we can find many people on Facebook who have their close friends or childhood friends as their sisters and brothers. On the other hand, many people present on Facebook have blood relationships between each other. Social networking sites, such as Facebook, also helps people in the formation of imagined communities and networks. People can form such communities where there are no boundaries, no nation states, but a place where they can find people with whom they feel good. Facebook has made people less individualistic.

Corporate Ethical Responsibility Essay Example for Free

Corporate Ethical Responsibility Essay CARSI Inc. has long since served the business world since 1922 where it first introduced products and services that are economically acceptable to large-scale markets as well as small business ventures all over the world. These high-tech products include industrial machineries and large-scale shipping vessels that provide business transactions and trading. But the dawn of the Prohibition during the 1930’s forced CARSI Inc. into revising its corporate strategy. While surviving and maintaining industrial and trading quality from the 1930’s up to the present, CARSI Inc. has also opened new avenues of business ventures and management opportunities that gave rise to the CARSI Management and Training Division (CARSI-MTD). Founded in the 1990’s, CARSI-MTD is an outsourcing company that not only provides world-class training programs and strategies but also provides multitude of careers opportunities to the young, aspiring individuals as well as professionals alike. Its main goal is to provide a wide range of training and development programs that will enable more perspectives in business management, Human Resource practices, career development, and corporate business responsibility. As such, CARSI-MTD has produced top-caliber CEOs, executives, top-management officers, and leading theorists in the business practice through an extensive learning program that centers on intellectual development and practical application. CARSI Inc. and CARSI-MTD as of 1999, became a member of the prestigious Fortune-500 group of companies with a total net worth of over $5-billion. Also, CARSI Inc. has provided financial assistance as well as business development in third-world countries by providing a pioneering effort of encouraging small-scale businesses as a means of livelihood and societal development. To date, CARSI-MTD maintains high-standards, quality, and value over employees which are the essential of corporate success. Vision To be a corporate-responsible company that provide business career opportunities, investments, career growth, and quality management practices for aspiring professionals around the world. Mission To introduce to the business world a new perspective of business practices through social awareness, ethical business practices, theoretical business development, and personnel growth and satisfaction. To bring about change in labor-oriented companies through proper compensation, security, and benefits. Products and Services CARSI-MTD offers a wide range of products and services, specifically designed by CARSI Inc. to meet the standards of a globally-competitive market. These products include: CARSI-MTD Learning Institute – a company investment which further applies management, human resource careers into further study and forming theoretical frameworks that can be applied in real-world cases or situations, specifically on labor, personnel management, and human resources. Training Materials/Programs – in line with its Vision-Mission statement, the company also provides scholarly articles made by certified professionals that serve the benefit of schools, colleges, and universities that specialize on management courses. Practical Application Procedure (PRACP) – a unique development of CARSI-MTD which aims to apply methods of learning to practical methods in developing countries that stabilize economic problems, help cultivate Foreign Direct Investments and, maximizing country growth output. Cultural Responsibility The company’s moral responsibility lies firstly on the company’s purpose. The company aims to produce good business practices by maintaining high-standards of quality that ensures a sound and ethically acceptable ethical behaviour in companies. By enforcing quality, principle, idealism, and perfection into the standards set by the company, it presents an alternate and relative effect on businesses and corporations around the world. Second, the company aims to maximize profit of its stakeholders, without compromising personal, social, or cultural issues. Guiding Principles â€Å"Organizations must recognize the rights and interest of various stakeholders – not only stockholders and employees but also outsiders affected by the company’s actions† (Sims 2003, p.40). This is the main ethical principle for the company as it aims to not only protect shareholder and stockholder interests but also to take into consideration the company’s actions. The company assures job satisfaction among its employees, an ample amount of investment for stockholders, ensuring proper adherence to legislations and laws through different international governments, proper benefits for union members, fair competition, and being a responsible citizen in a communal aspect as well as affecting a change on the quality of life. The following are the main points of social responsibility of CARSI-MTD: Shareholders: An active participation on the distribution of profit, right to elect board of directors, transfer of stock, inspection of company books,etc. Employees: Economic and psychological satisfaction with employment. Protection from political or physical imputations of company officers. Fringe benefits. Right to the formation of a union and forming Collective Bargaining Agreements. Conducive working environment and conditions. Customers: Quality services through high standards (e.g. product knowledge, assurance). Reliable warranties. Extensive Research and Development Program. Unions: Recognizing as a legitimate bargaining agent of between employees and the employer. Competition: Recognizing the normative functions of a healthy, competitive business environment as dictated by the industry and organization. Governments: Proper adherence to taxes, public policies (fair and free trade) and the labor code. Society: Act as company that contributes to social formation a well as healthy environment in small communities, provision of unbiased employment, cultural and financial initiatives, charities etc. (Sims 2003, p.41). In the internal aspect, the company is guided by the following professional ethics: Accounting The company considers a strict compliance to company rule and policy to avoid creative accounting and misleading financial predictions and analyses, manipulation of company resources, black market trading, excess executive compensation, bribery, etc. Human Resources As a company aimed to provide opportunities to all, the Human Resource practice of the company strictly follows an anti-discrimination policy as well as adhering to local and international business laws with regard to age, gender, race, religion, among others. Also, the company maintains a healthy working environment by providing suitable working conditions. In addition, the company provides heavy penalties for office politicking, blackmailing and invasions of privacy. As such, company policies also state an assurance on occupational safety and health, transparency, and individual freedom. Sales and Marketing Marketing policy of the company is determined to reduce price fixing, discrimination and skimming through a more social and moral introduction to different alternatives and methods. Also, the company blatantly refuses advertisements and marketing strategies that manipulate the nature of sex, provide subliminal messages or exposing children, sexual orientation in its corporate strategies. Principles for Consideration Corporate Social Responsibility is the main guiding ideology in the formation of a Code of Ethics. â€Å"CSR requires the continuing commitment by business to behaving ethically and contributing to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce, their families, as well as community and society at large† (Sims 2003, p. 43). What CSR provides is a corporate ideology of the company as it aims to form the an ideology that is aimed at social and economical development rather than a pure capitalist view. Through a social initiative, the company has a purpose to exist morally and ethically as it aims to support social causes and awareness through fundraising and volunteerism, among others. However, the problem lies when CSR is taken for granted when it is the company’s duty to be socially aware and responsible.

Underground To Canada : Mammy Sallys Version :: essays research papers

Underground to Canada : Mammy Sally's Version As Mammy Sally was cooking this lady called Nina who also worded in the kitchen said "I found a passage way out o' here." Mammy Sally looked shocker. "But if we get caught Massa Simms gonna whip us until our day are done workin'. "Said Mammy Sally. But, Nina was Strong and Fearless and said "I don't care I'm sick of the way those people treat us I goin' to Canada. Mammy Sally stood there for a while and in came Massa Simms with his whip. And said "You ladies gonna be standin' for a while" Mammy Sally looked frightened and said "No sir we were just talking about what's for diner," "So Said Massa Simms "what's for dinner", "well" said Mammy Sally "potatoes and corn" "what else" said Massa Simms Mammy Sally had a scared look on her face "What else"?! Yelled mass Simms" well I guess I can cook some bread" said Mammy Sally, "Same bread that would be nice" Some break that would be nice" Said Massa Simms. A Couple of hours passed and Mammy Sally getting ready to set the table for dinner when in came Nina and she said "So have you thought it yet" " no" said Mammy Sally. The next day Nina woke up early she put on here rags and took some food from the kitchen and woke up Mammy Sally and Mammy Sally said "if we get caught "I know I know" interrupted Nina " we gonna get whipped tell our days are done working." Well at least you know" said " Mammy Sally and they left. "So said Mammy Sally" Where is this secret passage you were talking about" you'll see" said Nina. When they got to the secret passage Mammy Sally said, "We aint gonna get out with out getting caught. Nina looked awkwardly at Mammy Sally and said "she is safer than the underground railway" "how can you ? it "said Mammy Sally. The secret passage was a hole through the ground and first went Mammy Sally after went Nina. When they got out Nina said " Smell the fresh air of freedom." "yes soon we will be back there and we wont be working in the kitchen we'll be getten whipped." It was getting and Mammy Sally and Nina were walking all day and they were very tired, so they decided to stop and rest. After they rested they ate and began walking again. It was down when they came to a cabin and the knocked on the door they

Caterpillar and Komatsu: A Mission Statement Evaluation Essay

Caterpillar and Komatsu are two of the largest heavy equipment manufacturers in the world with total revenue of over $29.1 billion dollars for fiscal year 2001 between the two companies. Caterpillar was established in 1925 after Benjamin Holt and Daniel Best merged their two companies, both of which had been in business for over 35 years each. Komatsu was founded in 1921 when Komatsu Iron Works was spun off as an independent corporation from Takeuchi Mining Industry, Ltd. Both companies, Caterpillar and Komatsu, have since established themselves in the market as leaders of heavy equipment manufacturing. A review of the websites and mission statements for each company speaks volumes about the company and their philosophy towards doing business. Each mission statement was evaluated for the following components as per the UniModule for the course: Customers, Products or services, Markets, Technology, Concern for survival, growth and profitability, Philosophy, Self-concept, Concern for public image and Concern for employees. Additionally, each mission statement, as well as the company web site and company reports, was reviewed to determine how the priorities of the stockholders were addressed. Caterpillar Caterpillar has both a vision and a mission to drive their company. The vision is basically stated, â€Å"Be the global leader in customer value† (Caterpillar). This basic statement drives the four different aspects of the mission and the company as a whole. The vision also shows a strong concern for survival and growth with a forward-looking vision to the future. In addition, a basic vision such as this also drives the philosophy of the company as they strive to be the best in their market. The first section of the mission statement is as follows: Caterpillar will be the leader in providing the best value in machines,  engines and support services for customers dedicated to building the world’s infrastructure and developing and transporting its resources. We provide the best value to customers. (italics as included in statement) (Caterpillar) As this section states, Caterpillar believes in supporting the customer through all aspects of its operations. This section also addresses Caterpillar’s philosophy in their products and services by providing the best value to their customers. The second section of the mission statement states: Caterpillar people will increase shareholder value by aggressively pursuing growth and profit opportunities that leverage our engineering, manufacturing, distribution, information management and financial services expertise. We grow profitably. (italics as included in statement) (Caterpillar) This section addresses Caterpillar’s concern for shareholder value by directly addressing their goals to increase value as part of the statement, and not as an afterthought. The simple line, â€Å"We grow profitably† shows a strong faith in their future as a company. The third section read: Caterpillar will provide its worldwide workforce with an environment that stimulates diversity, innovation, teamwork, continuous learning and improvement and rewards individual performance. We develop and reward people. (italics as included in statement) (Caterpillar) A strong concern for the employees is shown in this section of the mission statement. According to the Caterpillar website, the company offers extensive training and employee development, as well as a multitude of benefits for their employees. The final section of the mission statement is as follows: Caterpillar is dedicated to improving the quality of life while sustaining the quality of our earth. We encourage social responsibility. (italics as included in statement) (Caterpillar) Finally, Caterpillar addresses their concern for the public image of the company by addressing environmental and social issues in their mission statement. Caterpillar is involved in several environmental and social projects in the communities that they are a part of, whether in the United States or around the world. Overall, the vision and mission statement for Caterpillar is strong and clear, providing a valuable direction for the company in all aspects of their operation. Komatsu Komatsu has established a basic mission statement as well as a Code of Worldwide Business Conduct (Code) booklet that helps to guide the company in its global business dealings. This Code is updated annually to reflect any new or changed information that may affect how the company performs on a global level. The mission statement, which is actually an opening statement by the president of the company, Masahiro Sakane, reads as follows: Komatsu is committed to Quality and Reliability as the very cornerstones of its management to maximize its corporate value. Through business activities, we at Komatsu work to enhance the corporate value of Komatsu for shareholders and all other stakeholders by promoting activities to become a Strong Company, while simultaneously observing the â€Å"Rules of the Business Community (the Rules)† and fulfilling the responsibility of corporate citizenship to become a Good Company. In this manner, I believe that we can improve the Quality and Reliability of management and employees. (Komatsu) By breaking down the opening statement, as well as the pertinent sections of the Code, we can evaluate the company’s means for addressing the different  requirements from the UniModule. A driving force behind the Code is the strong commitment to quality and reliability for their products. This is addressed in the management direction section of the code, which provides five guidelines for enhancing quality and reliability. The first guideline directly addresses the customers’ needs and concerns, as well as the product and/or services themselves, by â€Å"constantly providing safe and innovative products/service and systems from the viewpoint of our customers.† (Komatsu) Additionally, product safety is mentioned as one of the main aspects for quality and reliability. According to Komatsu, â€Å"all employees place the highest priority for assurance of safety when engaging in development, production, procurement, sales, service and all other stages.† (Komatsu) References Caterpillar Company Information. Mission. Caterpillar. Retrieved on June 20, 2002 from the World Wide Web: http://www.cat.com/about_cat/company_information/03_mission/mission.html Komatsu Code of Business Conduct. Komatsu, Inc. Retrieved June 20, 2002 from the World Wide Web: http://www.komatsu.com/profile/index.html

In creation of annales school Essay

underwent a crisis. During the Third Republic, historians had established a strong presence within French universities by teaching political history of the French nation. After World War I, however, historians faced a challenge to their powerful position. In the late twenties and early thirties the government reduced the number of teaching posts made available to historians in secondary and higher education. Moreover, some French intellectuals questioned the value of professional history, accusing historians of contributing to the rise of jingoistic nationalism. In the context of these challenges to the status of history, some historians elected to alter the way they wrote political history. In the interests of â€Å"intellectual disarmament,† the Comite francais des sciences historiques and the Comite francais de la cooperation intellectuelle participated in an international effort to rewrite history textbooks. In 1929 the historians Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre launched a new journal Annales d’histoire economique et sociale. They did so in hope of transforming the historical discipline by providing a venue for the publication of research focused on social and economic history. Throughout much of the journal’s history, editors of Annales encouraged a style of history that rose above the accumulation of fact, that mobilized historians to tackle shared problems, and that sought to build alliances among different fields in the social sciences. Historians in Europe and the United States have seen the creation of Annales as a crucial turning point in the history of the historical profession and the French social sciences. After World War II the journal, then renamed Annales: economies, societes, civilisations, served as a rallying point for young French historians interested in exploring new approaches to writing history. Taking up the intellectual program first defined by Bloch and Febvre, Annales’s post-WWII editors advocated a style of history that borrowed problems and methods from demography, economics, and geography. This paper show how Bloch and Febvre drew on the concern about intellectual over-specialization and the trend to collectivize research in order to shape research on economic history and rural society. Although Bloch proposed numerous collaborative projects, the mainstay of the journal’s success was its attention to rural history. The political import of research on rural societies and the cultural politics of intellectual cooperation thus proved to be valuable resources in the development of Annales’s intellectual program. HISTORIOGRAPHY Over the past two decades historians have been taking stock of the journal’s legacy to history and social science. A major theme in evaluations of Annales is the journal’s interdisciplinary ambition. Some historians of history depict the alliances negotiated between history and the social sciences as problematic. For example, Georg Iggers and Lawrence Stone contend that in emulating the social sciences the New History lost sight of the ways in which human beings make history. Purporting to examine society at its most profound levels, Annales historians tended to make history not a study of change but a science of static societies. Some historians are rethinking the merits of social science history. In a collection of essays on historiography Immanuel Wallerstein, once a proponent of Annales history, proclaims that the time has come to move beyond Annales and the emphasis on interdisciplinarity. Proponents of the New Cultural History have turned away from the blending of geography, economics, demography, sociology, and history that had been the hallmark of Annales history from the fifties to the early seventies. Some of them, including the Annales historian Herman Lebovics, draw on literary theory to criticize the assumptions and categories used by many social and economic historians in their analyses. The reevaluation of history’s alliances with the social sciences is fueled partly by a reaction to the scientization of the discipline and partly by philosophers of historical writing, who have drawn attention to the rhetorical and literary aspects of history. Taking a different approach to analyzing the relationship between history and social science, Terry Clark and Francois Dosse look at the function of competition in intellectual life. Clark depicts the leadership of historians over the establishment of the Sixth Section as the result of a struggle between historians and sociologists for control of institutional resources. More polemical than Clark, Dosse overtly attacks Annales historians’ tendency to raid other social sciences in their relentless pursuit of new topics and methods. Dosse suggests that interdisciplinarity was merely a form of intellectual acquisitiveness that led historians to absorb (or attempt to absorb) other intellectual fields. The result is a patchwork history that had lost coherence as a discipline. Two sources help greatly in examination of Marc Bloch’s life and work, his influence and role in establishing the Annales School. The Susan Friedman book Marc Bloch, Sociology, and Geography: Encountering Changing Disciplines, provides excellent coverage of Bloch’s life and career: some fundamental and significant standpoints and events are described and discussed thoroughly therein. In addition, Carole Fink’s book Marc Bloch: A Life in History provides intellectual and political bibliography of Annales co-founder. THE ANNALES PROGRAM From the journal’s inception through the end of the thirties, Bloch and Febvre worked to create a collective spirit among Annales’s readers and contributors. In the letter that accompanied the first issue of the journal, they proclaimed that the young periodical was born of â€Å"in effort to rapprochement of contributors,† whose ambition was to work collaboratively â€Å"constant community. † By the end of the thirties Bloch and Febvre referred to a common identity that was shared by those who rallied to the journal. In 1939, when they terminated their relationship with Armand Colin and began to publish the journal independently, they again appealed to the collective spirit of their subscribers. The reference to the solidarity of the journal’s â€Å"disciples† was the most explicit evocation of solidarity to appear during the thirties. In addition to making an explicit appeal to teamwork and collaboration, Bloch and Febvre marketed Annales to both academic and non-academic readers. In the planning phase of the journal in 1928, they informed their publisher that they anticipated selling subscriptions to university libraries in France and abroad as well as to municipal libraries. In addition professional historians in higher education, they decided to make an appeal to history teachers in French high schools as well as local savants, whose good will and research efforts had been wasted, they felt, in the activities of provincial learned societies. In their efforts to market the journal, they distributed two prospects — one for professional historians and another for the local savant. As Febvre wrote, he and Bloch intended to add, as an expression of good will, personal notes to the copies of the prospectus destined for provincial researchers. Professional sociologists and experts on society and economics comprised the last major group of potential readers and contributors that Bloch and Febvre had in mind in 1928. With the publication of Annales starting in 1929, Bloch tried to use the journal to advance his career. Early in the early thirties, he actively campaigned for a position in Paris, and he had his eye Camille Jullian’s Chair at the College de France. In 1930, Bloch penned a flattering retrospective article on Jullian’s career, and late in 1932, he praised Jullian’s preface to Guy de Tournadre’s L’histoire du comte de Forealquier, while subjecting Tournadre to excoriating criticism. Bloch also attacked the medievalist Louis Halphen in a review of Halphen’s contribution to Cambridge University Press’s multi-volume series on medieval history. During the twenties Halphen and Bloch had entertained a rivalry. Both occupied the field of medieval history and therefore vied with each other for a position in Paris. In the midst of that rivalry each historian struggled to establish his intellectual niche and institutional foothold by defining himself in opposition to the other. Although Bloch’s efforts to join the College de France failed, he won a position at the Sorbonne in 1935. Bloch, who was Halphen’s junior by six years, received a Parisian appointment only one year after Halphen assumed his Chair at the Sorbonne in 1934. Between 1932 and 1934, Bloch and Febvre actively solicited contributions from non-academic researchers by introducing another style of inquiry — the â€Å"enquete contemporaine. † The contemporary studies were not designed to be collectively executed research projects, and Bloch and Febvre offered no specific research guidance. Instead, the journal published on-going or recent work on the economy of contemporary Europe, and most contributors wrote articles on such topics as banking and finance. By designing projects that called on the contribution of such an ilk, they hoped to rally different groups — amateur, professional, and expert — around the journal. By choosing such a variety of scholars to participate in the journal, Bloch and Febvre thus defined the intellectual mission of the journal broadly. Moreover, they deliberately left such terms as â€Å"social† and â€Å"economic† loosely defined. Bloch’s correspondence with the historian of Japan Kanichi Asakawa revealed a conscious decision to leave open the journal’s definition of social history. Bloch and Febvre adopted a similarly broad view of the journal’s intellectual mission when they opened Annales up to contributions from other social scientists. With the exception of favoring empirical research over theoretical studies, they defined no intellectual orthodoxy for the journal. In Annales, cross-disciplinarity was often little more than an ensemble of articles by different social scientists on related topics. In 1935 and 1936, for example, Bloch and Febvre published a series of essays on tools and technology, which included an article by Andre Haudricourt, an agronomist who later specialized in ethno-botany and the ethno-history of technology. In his correspondence with the historian Charles Parain, Haudricourt wrote that he was astounded by the intellectual differences between historians and ethnographers despite their common interest in tools and technology. True to Haudricourt’s observation, his article on the harness and Bloch’s article on the same subject had no meaningful similarities or differences — they simply bypassed each other. Haudricourt’s essay in Annales followed the harness’s geographical diffusion. When they defined Annales’a intellectual mission, Febvre and Bloch shared a desire to avoid intellectual orthodoxy . Their goals were twofold. They wanted to encourage historians to think about specific research problems, and they also wanted to lay the groundwork for doing empirical research on economic and social history by gathering information about archives. One of the strategies they used to accomplish those goals was the organization of collective projects. Responding to the inter-war emphasis on international cooperation, Bloch and Febvre saw collective research as a way to inspire their readers to organize their work around common problems. In the first issue of Annales Bloch and Febvre announced several structured inquiries into the history rural society, of prices, and of nobility. But in spite of their agreement on the basic research program for the journal and in spite of their confidence in the utility of collective research, they eventually developed very different conceptions of what intellectual teamwork might bring to history and social science. Febvre’s conception of teamwork and its usefulness for historians and social scientists centered on the collection of information. In contrast with Febvre’s fascination with the division of labor and the creation of a research network, Bloch showed less interest in culling data from a pool of untrained research workers. Early in his career, he had expressed an interest in using research questionnaires, although he had not thought of them as useful for establishing large-scale projects in data collection. Bloch’s earliest writings on methodology drew parallels between the use of questionnaires and the scientist’s practice of reporting on research objectives and procedures. Bloch saw questionnaires as instrumental for structuring communication among fields in the social and human sciences. For example, he advocated emulating the multi-disciplinary approach of the Oslo Institute for the Comparative Study of Culture. BLOCH’S WORK AND ROLE In the journal’s first year Bloch implemented a collective project on rural history. The project on â€Å"Les plans parcellaires† was journal’s longest and most successful team project. In his introduction, Bloch called on historians and geographers to create an inventory of archival sources on rural history. According to him, valuable data on the rural economy had been preserved in rarely consulted property registers and land plats held in local archives and libraries. The â€Å"plans parcellaires† and the property registers created by European states provided visual and textual sources on the evolution of the French countryside. Scattered in archives throughout France and Europe, they provided snapshots of rural societies at different points in history. In France, they offered a way to study rural history from seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Bloch argued that the study of the â€Å"traits matiriels† of the rural countryside would help researchers understand the basic structure of rural society as a precursor to further research. Using cadastral maps, geographers and historians could study changes in land usage, systems of crop rotation, the persistence of common land or its enclosure, settlement patterns, the distribution and size of villages, and the evolution of seigniorial authority. Because of the cadasters’ potential value to geographers and historians, Bloch used Annales to create a basic inventory of their availability. He did not, however, use his team projects to generate raw data on rural history. Bloch asked readers to submit articles on the availability of four types of sources in their local archives or libraries: land maps (terriers) created prior to the Revolution, property records generated during the Revolution, the Napoleonic cadaster, and any revisions made to it during the nineteenth century. Through Annales, Bloch built a team comprised of local savants, students, and specialists on rural society and economy from France and abroad. In 1931 the friendly society of provincial archivists adopted a proposal to establish an inventory of the Napoleonic cadaster as well as any maps that provided information on the type of crops grown in the different regions of France. The Director of French Archives endorsed the proposal in a circular distributed to archivists throughout France. As the project unfolded, Bloch not only recommended that historians analyze visual historical sources on the French countryside (i. e. , cadastral atlases and terriers), but he also advocated studying the contemporary landscape. In instructions and articles for the study of the â€Å"plans parcellaires,† he recommended using aerial photography and archaeology in order to identify the trace of past in the present configuration of the countryside. Bloch’s work on rural history has helped to define the nation myth of French diversity and rootedness in a rural past. One of the themes that emerges from Bloch’s book on French rural history, Les caracteres originaux de 1’histoire rurale francaise, was indeed the diversity of France and the deep continuities between past and present that defined French rural history. Surveying the French countryside from the hamlets of Brittany to the villages of Provence, Bloch identified dramatic contrasts in the physical, economic, and social configuration of French rural life. Examining the rural economy, he identified a variety of agrarian regimes. Open fields, enclosures, agricultural tools as well as biennial and triennial systems of crop rotation all combined and overlapped in divergent ways throughout France. In place of any form of national ethnic unity or homogeneity, he identified three distinct types of agrarian civilization. As Meillet and Demangeon had done in the late twenties, Bloch also indulged a patriotic claim that French scholars might lead their European colleagues in orchestrating research on rural civilization. Unlike Febvre, whose work with the Commission des recherches collectives eventually led him to undertake a national inventory of France’s rural civilization, Bloch remained committed to implementing projects at the international level, planning collective studies that built on his work in rural history. In a 1933 proposal published in the Bulletin of the International Committee of the Historical Sciences, he outlined a project on the transformation of seigniorial institutions throughout Europe. Bloch proposed to create a common questionnaire in order to establish a basic starting point. With France clearly in mind, he focused on studying the erosion of large seigniorial demesnes and the rise of the small landholder, who paid a form of rent usually in crops but sometimes in obligatory labor. As he had stated in Les caracteres originaux, the emergence of the small landholder was one of the defining characteristics of French rural history. Although France was his starting point for defining research projects on rural history, he intended his project to generate comparative and cross-disciplinary research on European agrarian history. Yet in his work on rural history Bloch transformed France into a microcosm of Europe. He used France to illuminate research problems that he considered pertinent to Europe as a whole, and he claimed that rural France was in fact an ideal laboratory for the study of European agricultural civilization as a whole. The diversity of France and the multiple agrarian civilizations that Bloch found there made it a universal theater of research. In 1934 Bloch repeated his call for collective research on rural civilization to an audience of French scholars. In a proposal to the College de France, written for his campaign for a chair in the comparative history of European civilization, he outlined plans for an international investigation of European rural history. He proposed to pursue research on agrarian regimes as well as on evolving notions of personal liberty and servitude. Bloch again called for the use of a unified research questionnaire in order to solicit contributions from those outside of the University’s upper echelons. The standardized questionnaires allowed for more effective coordination in the scale and scope of research, and the coordination of comparative research would establish France’s intellectual leadership in an area and research method that had thus far been neglected beyond France’s borders. Bloch argued that his project would guide experts, scholars, local savants, and students in a vast collaborative project that would cross national frontiers as well as the intellectual and social boundaries created by university hierarchies. Between 1928 and 1930, Bloch had elaborated his approach to comparative history. From the outset Bloch eschewed the modern nation-state as his research terrain. To accept modern boundaries and national divisions within the formulation of a research project was to impose anachronistic categories on historically situated societies, groups, institutions, and economies. For Bloch effective comparison required researchers to recognize the fluidity of geographical frontiers. Bloch’s approach to comparative history drew heavily on Antoine Meillet’s work in comparative and historical linguistics, which had sought to redefine the study of European civilization through international study of dialects and language families. As much as Bloch admired the tools that Meillet had brought to the history of civilizations, he also saw historical linguistics as only one tool among others. Bloch contended that the cultural frontiers identified by historical and geographic linguistics did not necessarily correspond to the frontiers that could be identified by historians or human geographers. Bloch trusted the detection of multiplicity and the complex connections among linguistic, institutional, social, economic facts that made explaining change such a difficult undertaking. Above all he feared intellectual laziness, which tempted scholars to rely on categories or abstract concepts that too easily substituted for criticism, reflection, and intellectual flexibility. In interwar Europe, ethnicity was one of the abstractions that informed research on rural civilization, and many of Bloch’s commentaries on rural civilization contained sharp criticism of it. In a 1928 article on comparative history, he had criticized the effort by Friedrich Meitzen, the German specialist of agrarian civilization, to establish an ethnic map of Europe. In a 1934 review of German research on toponymy and ancient history, Bloch criticized scholars who attempted to write the history of race and ethnicity. In 1932 Bloch returned to the rural habitat in a review of the latest round of work that had emerged from the 1931 International Conference of Geographers. In a tangent on Slavic scholarship on the rural history of Eastern Europe, Bloch objected to the intrusion of nationalism into scholarship on European settlement patterns. The bulk of his article, though, dealt with the conceptual problems of writing on the rural habitat. Bloch developed Lefevre’s earlier recommendation that such terms as habitat, village, and hamlet be more clearly defined. Between its first meeting in 1925 and its final report in 1931, the International Committee on the Rural Habitat had elected to use a numerical formula to define the terms village and hamlet: X number of houses within a given area equaled a village, whereas fewer than X made up a hamlet. Emphasizing the importance of examining social groups in addition to habitat and landscape, Bloch sought to make the analysis of rural life intellectually subtle and less vulnerable to serving nationalist agenda. To the arbitrary numerical definition of the village that was offered by geographers, Bloch added a social definition the rural village. Arguing that geographers had overlooked the social nature of the village community, he contended that family or kinship groups often define villages and hamlets. He held that historians and social scientists in fact understood very little about the history of the family. During the late thirties he began to sharpen his criticisms of what he saw as the increasingly romantic nationalist strain in research on rural civilization. At the 1937 Congres international de folklore, Bloch overtly attacked Demangeon’s work on the rural habitat. According to Bloch, Demangeon had simplified the complexity of rural society by glorifying peasant civilization. In a paper for the 1939 International Conference of Sociologists, he proposed another research project in which he gave the guidelines for a study of village communities. Bloch’s 1939 proposal was not the first time that he had dealt with the social structures of rural civilization. Even in Lea caracteres originaux, he had taken care to differentiate among the social groups working the land, discussing the emergence of the small landholder and agricultural day laborers. Bloch’s plans for a study of the village community built on his interest in extending the analysis of rural civilization to include the structures of social life in addition to his earlier projects on cadastral records and the physical features of the rural habitat. 9S Bloch’s recommendations came with what he saw as the urgent need to arrest the intrusion of nationalism into the social sciences, and he attacked any effort to use research on rural life and the peasantry to indulge romantic and ethnic definitions of the nation. That concern about the nationalist overtones of research on rural society emerged in his articles on rural history. In an article for the catalog of the 1939 exhibition on the French agronomist Olivier de Serres, Bloch redoubled his attacks on the mythologization of peasant France. In his paper he scrutinized the writings of nineteenth century French historians, pointing out their simplification of French history in using such abstractions as the Gallic or Frankish races. Bloch had clearly wearied of the ways in which discussions of European settlement patterns and rural civilization served as a blank screen for the projection of politically motivated descriptions of national unity, colonization, conquest, or invented antagonisms among races or ethnic groups. CONCLUSION Historians of Annales have often focused on the resistance among most historians to Bloch and Febvre’s efforts to reform the historical profession. Their studies have neglected the strategies that Bloch and Febvre used to recruit participants for journal and for their efforts to negotiate alliances with other fields in the social sciences. More often than not, Febvre’s and Bloch’s attempt to bring the fields of sociology, geography, linguistics, folklore, and history together around such topics as work, prices, or rural history revealed significant differences of method. Thus, the journal’s cross-disciplinary alliances yielded limited success in structuring genuinely cross-disciplinary collaboration. In order to direct historians away from the writing of political history, Bloch and Febvre adopted collective research as a strategy for rallying historians to the journal and to define research problems. For Febvre collaborative research furnished researchers who generate raw data which can then be used by expert researchers. Through his involvement with the Commission des recherches collectives, he negotiated an alliance with folklorists to organize amateur researchers for the purposes of gathering data on traditional ways of life, village communities, and peasant customs. In Bloch’s work team research functioned as a form of pedagogy through which he instructed his colleagues in the provinces and the students on techniques and sources that were critical to writing the history of rural civilization. Through Annales Bloch worked to alter the intellectual terrain of history. However, the historian remained the guardian of the nation’s symbols and heritage, just as it had been earlier in the Third Republic. Rather than focus on political history, Bloch defined France through the diversity of its rural civilization. At the end of the thirties, Bloch became increasingly cognizant of the political implications of research on rural France. In his reviews and through their leadership of research projects both Bloch helped to position the discipline of history as the critic of fields that contributed to the study of rural France. During the forties the study of rural France became increasingly politicized by the Vichy government. Works Cited Besnard, Philippe, ed. The Sociological Domain: The Durkheiminas and the Founding of French Sociology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Burke, Peter. The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School, 1929-1989. Cambridge: Polity, 1990. Clark, Terry Nichols. Prophets and Patrons: The French University and the Emergence of the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973. Dosse, Francois. The New History in France: The Triumph of Annales. Translated by Peter V. Conroy. Chicago: University Illinois Press, 1994. Fink, Carole. Marc Bloch: A Life in History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Friedman, Susan W. Marc Bloch, Sociology, and Geography: Encountering Changing Disciplines. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Iggers, Georg. New Directions in European Historiography. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1975. Hunt, Lynn. â€Å"French History in the Last Twenty Years: The Rise and Fall of the Annales Paradigm,† Journal of Contemporary History 21 (1986): 209-24. Kain, Roger J. P. and Elizabeth Baigent. The Cadastral Map in the Service of the State: A History of Property Mapping. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992. Keylor, William. Academy and Community: The Foundation of the French Historical Profession. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975. Lebovics, Herman. True France: The Wars over Cultural Identity, 1900-1945. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Stoianovich, Traian. French Historical Method: The Annales Paradigm. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976. Stone, Lawrence. The Past and the Present Revisited, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987. Weber, Eugen. The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994. Wallerstein, Immanuel. Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms. New York: Polity Press, 1991. Wallerstein, Immanuel. â€Å"Annales as Resistance,† Review 1 (1978): 5-7.

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