Collective Memory as a Subject of Historical Research: A Study of Selected Historians from the Third Generation of the Annales School

Abstract

This article seeks to study the evolution of research on “collective memory”, a subject of great significance to the academic tradition of history in the Francophone sphere. Three approaches are given close detail. The first is rooted inPierre Nora’s article in The New History (1978); the second is by Jacques Le Goff in a chapter of his book History and Memory (1988); and the third by Phillippe Joutard in the encyclopedic work edited by Francois Dosse with other historians (2010). The aim is to follow the developments in the study of collective memory as a new subject of knowledge under the rubric of historical research, and the extent to which French historians, and particularly those in the third generation of the Annales school, contributed to a novel, academic and methodical approach to the study of history.