Stanley Cavell, "The Ordinary as the Uneventful"

The Annales historians oppose a traditional history focused on great events, focusing instead on long term social change. Paul Ricoeur claims that the Annales historians think they can do history without reference to events, but that they are mistaken, because all forms of narrative presuppose some conception of events. But a better way to understand what the Annales historians are up to is to see them as not trying to avoid events altogether, but as interested in the uneventful, the ordinary.