Annales School
The French "Annales School" had already put an emphasis on the role of geography and economics on history, and of the importance of broad, slow cycles rather than the constant apparent movement of the "history of events" of high politics. It downplayed politics and diplomacy. The most important work of the "Annales" school, Fernand Braudel's "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II", contains a traditional Rankean diplomatic history of Philip II's Mediterranean policy, but only as the third and shortest section of a work largely focusing on the broad cycles of history in the "longue durée" ("long term"). The "Annales" were broadly influential, leading to a turning away from political history towards an emphasis on broader trends of economic and environmental change.