Dear Avner,

AO > It would help if you could give a thumbnail account of where Finlay and
Braudel went wrong, and what was at stake.

Will do my best, thumbnails are not my forte.  

Finley made the ancient European economic experience completely alien to our
own, with the surely false claim that Greeks and Romans had no conception of
macro-economic matters.  Since the fabric of Renaissance and Enlightenment
thought was in great part driven by revisiting interlinked understandings of
politics, economics and philosophy in ancient times, Finley attempted to
demolish the whole edifice – setting our modern intellectual clock back to
year 0.  It derails at a stroke the kind of historical programs I read in
the undertakings of such as Wells, Russell and Popper.

Finley’s key error was revealed to me on seeing that we have a very great
deal of writing from Ancient China undeniably bearing directly of macro
economic matters like money supply and the politics of economic
organisation.  Thus the historicist assumption, that ancient Europeans
understood  nothing of such matters, would make Greeks and Romans
unacceptably and unaccountably stupid by comparison.  In fact such matters
were regularly addressed in Ancient European literature, just in rather
tangential ways.  The satirist Petronius had the enormously wealthy
Tremalchio have “10 million sesterces put in the strong box because they
could not be invested”  Read in context this was surely a sophisticated and
deliberate macro-economic joke.  Finley however read it as a factual
statement revealing ancient economic ignorance – so flat footed as to be
unintentionally humorous in itself

In Braudel I balked at factual and philosophical errors, here I will mention
just the former.  Braudel’s account of the history of money use in India in
the 16th century was a false fabrication.  The real reason for a return to
silver use in North India around 1540 was rooted in the dishoarded silver
Sher Shah Suri captured in battle.  It was converted to coin due to Sher
Shah's personal political and economic philosophy - that national prosperity
would be boosted by giving individuals access to markets to chase their
personal prosperity.  Sher Shah was more like the modern caricature of “Adam
Smith” than even Adam Smith himself.  Braudel ignored this completely, the
“as though” story he fabricated concerned imported South American silver. 
As though the silver strike at Potosi in 1545 could dictate events in India
in 1540……..

Both Finley and Braudel ultimately use historicist stances to impoverish
general understanding.  A kind of “don’t frighten the horses” sort of thing.
 BTW of the two writers I found most useful on Ancient Chinese economic
matters, Del Mar seems to me to have been sacked on account of his opinions,
Maverick (I corresponded with his son) had his tenure cancelled, I judge for
similar reasons.

I seem to recall Febvre got institutional support primarily from French
National agencies, prior to WWII.  However, his negotiations with
Rockefeller began as far back as 1926?  Perhaps Alain Alcouffe can confirm?
 I note that Rist was on the board of Annales.

Rob Tye