Robert Darnton (1990) 'Let Poland be Poland', in The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections on Cultural History, Markham Ontario, Penguin: p.33

'The Annales school.... has pronounced "event history".... dead, "a corpse which we must kill"..... Try telling a Pole that events don't matter, that diplomacy and politics are epiphenomena, that one can neglect dates in order to study structures. He will reply that the difference between 1940 and 1941 is a matter of life and death; that nothing could be more important than the secret provisions of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact; that th whole meaning of Poland can be strung out on dates: 1772, 1793, 1795, 1830, 1863, 1919-20, 1939, 1944-5, 1956, 1968, 1970 and 1980.

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