Why did the Annales school of history have no lasting effect when it was so different from what had gone before?

The Annales school did, in fact, change how history was practiced. It was part of a larger transformation in historiography that moved away from the study of just kings and battles, and looked at a broader sweep of social and economic history. Much of "history from below", which attempts to study the lives of ordinary people, is a direct outcome of the influence of the Annales school. Several of the works of the school, including...

The Annales school did, in fact, change how history was practiced. It was part of a larger transformation in historiography that moved away from the study of just kings and battles, and looked at a broader sweep of social and economic history. Much of "history from below", which attempts to study the lives of ordinary people, is a direct outcome of the influence of the Annales school. Several of the works of the school, including the writings of Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, and Jacques Le Goff are still widely read and respected.

The study of history progresses, however, and the journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale was founded in 1929. In a period of over 85 years, much has changed. While scholars such as Chartier are legitimately descended from the Annales school, especially in the ways they use archival materials to reconstruct everyday life, more recent work tends to be skeptical of the broad notion of mentalities and more aware of issues of race and gender than was common in the early twentieth century. 

Far from having no lasting affect, it is more accurate to state that ideas that were considered revolutionary when first mooted by the Annales historians are now simply part of how we do history, something that is a testament to their enduring influence.