“An incredible number of dice, always rolling, dominate and determine each
individual existence: uncertainty, then, in the realm of individual history;
but in that of collective history … simplicity and consistency. History is
indeed ‘a poor little conjectural science’ when it selects individuals as its
objects … but much more rational in its procedures and results, when it
examines groups and repetitions.” — ‘L’histoire, mesure du monde’, in Les Ecrits de Fernand Braudel, vol. ii, Paris 1997.