Lucien Febvre: La pensee vivante d'un historien by Hans-Dieter MannReview by: Martin SiegelThe American Historical Review, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Apr., 1976), pp. 399-400Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1851244 .

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Modern Europe 399

from south of Saint Malo, whereas eight came from Lyons and nine more from the southeastern towns. Books such as this are of great and lasting value to social historians.

J. F. BOSHER

rork University

CHRISTOPHER H. JOHNSON. Utopian Communism in France: Cabet and the Icarians, i839-i85i. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1974. Pp. 324. $17.50.

With Christopher Johnson's study of Cabet, our knowledge of utopian socialism is considerably ad- vanced. Previous publications about the early so- cialists have tended to concentrate on the ideol- ogies of their protagonists and to neglect early socialism as a movement-as a kind of embryonic political organization involved in winning over, socializing, and preparing the working classes for their rise to power. There is a plethora of in- tellectual studies, but none that explore deeply into the social context. Johnson's is the first effort to probe extensively the archives and to try to discover the role and strength of Cabet's following in Paris and the provinces. He has been about as successful as one can expect, given the sparsity of documents on the beliefs and allegiances of the lower classes before the rise of opinion polls and micro-sociological investigations. With the aid of police reports, Cabet's private papers, the sub- scription lists of his journals, observations by con- temporaries, and the local history available in monographs, Johnson presents some indications of the size of the movement, its geographic location, and a profile of the typical Icarian communist. All this is admittedly "soft" data, and with it he can do little more than suggest or offer enlightened guesses when answering the questions he posed because his questions had to do with quantities.

Given these limits, I find his approach to be adequate; most of his conclusions seem reason- able. At times he has perhaps gone beyond his data, as when he asserted that "tailors, shoe- makers and cabinetmakers flocked to the Icarian cause." Table 3 shows that these three crafts pro- vided forty per cent of a sample of 497 declared Icarians; but it does not indicate their clearly mi- nute percentage in the total number of workers in these crafts. This is, however, a minor issue and by no means detracts from the value of the book. Much of this value lies in Johnson's explanations of the reasons why workers became Icarians in several provincial cities and in his assessment of Cabet, not as a theorist, for Johnson acknowledges his subject's mental limits, but as a leader involved in the practical problems of tactics, organization, and recruitment. Until 1847 Cabet was an effective, practical leader; but afterward he became a dicta- torial messiah-a develoDment of personalitv that

won the approval of large numbers of his followers as the movement assumed the character of a sect. Johnson's explanation of this transition is quite interesting; he combines factors within and with- out the sect and relates the transition to Cabet's decision to emigrate. His empirical explanation should prove valuable to students looking for a theory about millennial movements in general.

LEO LOUBERE

State University of New lork, Buffalo

HANS-DIETER MANN. Lucien Febvre: La pensee vivante d'un historien. Preface by FERNAND BRAUDEL. (Ca- hiers des Annales, 31.) Paris: Librairie Armand Colin. 1971. Pp. 189. 30 fr.

In 1950, when Fernand Braudel succeeded Lu- cien Febvre at the College de France at Paris, the famous medievalist Ferdinand Lot was reported to have remarked that the election was the "shame" of French scholarship. One can still find opposi- tion to the successors of what H. Stuart Hughes aptly has called the "Febvre pontificate," although today the Annales historians remain the virtual masters of the French historical profession with a charismatic influence upon historians throughout the world.

In this slender book, the historian Hans-Dieter Mann contributes to our further understanding of a remarkable historiographical movement with an impressionistic analysis of the historical ideas of Febvre (1878-l956), a chef d'ecole who was without doubt one of the most brilliant and imaginative historians of the twentieth century. Mann has di- vided his study unevenly into three parts. The second part, devoted to Febvre's role in the devel- opment of a new history, is the nucleus of the book and the section that will be of greatest interest to most historians. By skillful documentation of Febvre's reactions to the seminal ideas of his con- temporaries, scholars such as the sociologist Emile I)urkheim, the geographer Vidal de la Blache, and especially the philosopher Henri Berr, Mann has exposed remarkably well the long roots of the An- nales revolt against the positivistic and narrative history (histoire evenementielle) of the French aca- demic establishment of the early decades of the twentieth century. Indeed, historians today will find it sobering to see how Febvre, and his follow- ers in the Annales, retained a passionate attach- ment to a unique and independent historical disci- pline in spite of a constant fascination and involvement with the methodologies of the social sciences.

Given the solid grounding of Mann's book in Febvre's incredibly prolific writings, it would be churlish to dwell upon the fact, noted by Fernand Braudel in an otherwise enthusiastic preface, that

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400 Reviews of Books

the author has not utilized archival material in preparing this study. Indeed, since the book was written-the most recent item in the bibliography is 1967-several American scholars have discov- ered in letters and official reports written by Febvre important new dimensions of his thought. But Mann's talents and inclinations lie closer to Isaiah Berlin's philosophical fox than to the hedge- hog. One hopes that in future studies Mann will explore further such fascinating themes as the filia- tion of ideas between Febvre, linguistic theory, and structuralism, which are too hastily presented throughout this book.

But readers of this book will be well rewarded by becoming more familiar with the mind of a histo- rian who has been called with some justice the "intellectual banker of his age," while specialists should rejoice that this guide to the outillage mental of Febvre brings us closer to the time when a more definitive history of the Annales historical school can be written.

MARTIN SIEG(EL

Kean College of New Jersey

RICHARD L. KAGAN. Students and Society in Early Mod- ern Spain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1975. Pp. xxv, 278. $13.50.

The central chapters of this book examine the development of an important facet of early modern Spanish society: the three-part relationship be- tween the Colegios Mayores, an important facet of the universities; the evolving letrado class, anal- ogous to a nobility of the robe; and the upper levels of Spanish government and bureaucracy. The Co- legios Mayores expanded rapidly in sixteenth-cen- tury Castile, accounting for much of the growth of university education stimulated by growing gov- ernmental demand for trained legal administrative personnel. As the Spanish empire evolved, how- ever, the Colegios Mayores increasingly became the preserve of a cluster of letrado dynasties. Colegio scholarships for poor students were perverted to support the sons of successful graduates, while colegio teaching chairs became temporary positions for graduates who were candidates for high gov- ernment appointments. By i6oo Colegio admission was largerly restricted to sons of previous gradu- ates, while the higher bureaucracy was dominated by the same group. Simultaneously, Colegio train- ing became a prerequisite for high office. Serious education became irrelevant to the system, and a closed structure perpetrated a conservative set of values and attitudes within the very administrative elite that was crucial to implementation of any reform under the Old Regime. The development of this closed system of education and co-option to office was under way by the 1550s, was completed

by 1650, and continued to operate into the eigh- teenth century. These findings go far toward ex- plaining in social and educational terms the ob- served characteristics, such as incompetence and lack of commitment, of both the Spanish bureauc- racy and the Castilian universities in the early modern period.

These results make Students and Society in Early Modern Spain an important book for the social his- tory of modern Spain, despite some problems of perspective and emphasis. The initial impression is of a study of higher education in a fairly wide sense, but the real concern is with a particular facet of that system and its relationship with the state. While the central chapters represent thor- ough and imaginative scholarship, the coverage of the eighteenth century is less effective than for the two preceding centuries. There are annoying me- chanical problems that are surprising given the reputation of the publisher, who apparently gave the author little help in tightening style and syn- tax.

Despite these concerns, however, the important parts of the book are based on thorough research and penetrating insights. Students and Society in Early Modern Spain is an innovative book that should be examined carefully by any scholar of early modern European society.

DAV'ID R. RINGROSE

University of California, San Diego

MARIA DO ROSARIO DE SAMPAIO THEMUDO BARATA. Rui Fernandes de Almada: Diplomata portugues do s&ulo XVI. Lisbon: Instituto de Alta Cultura, Centro de Estudos Historicos. 1971. Pp. xiv, 361.

Rui Fernandes de Almada's career as bureau- crat, noble diplomat or ennobled merchant, and royal confidant spanned a period between 1480 and 1540 when Portugal forged important eco- nomic ties with Northern Europe. Almada was associated with many of the outstanding business- men of this age, and the author seeks to assess the diplomatic contribution of this Portuguese man of letters. He traces Almada's active service to the Portuguese Crown, first in North Africa at Oran and Safi, then on to Flanders and special missions in France and the Germanies. Unfortunately, the extant documentation does not always afford a chronological continuity, and at times Almada's role in events under discussion seems almost con- trived, or at best marginal. The book is not strictly biographical, but rather it affords a panoramic view of trade relations between Portugal and her European suppliers and markets.

Of special interest is this diplomat's quest for new sources of copper ore, which Portugal needed

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