The term new history from the French term nouvelle histoire, was coined by Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, leaders of the third generation of the Annales School, in the 1970s. The movement can be associated with cultural history, history of representations and histoire des mentalités. However, how meaningful the term ever was, and how representative it is of how historians see their work today, is open to question. The term is seldom used outside France.
The new history movement's inclusive definition of the proper matter of historical study has also given it the label total history. The movement was contrasted with the traditional ways of writing history which focused on politics and 'great men'. The new history rejected any insistence on composing historical narrative; an over-emphasis on administrative documents as basic source materials; concern with individuals' motivations and intentions as explanatory factors for historical events; and the old belief in objectivity.
References
- Peter Burke, 'Overture: The New History, its Past and its Future', in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. by Peter Burke (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), pp. unknown. (A second edition of this book, not available on free access, was published by the same publishers in 2001.)
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