Mediterranean

by Fernand Braudel

Book Overview

The focus of Fernand Braudel's great work is the Mediterranean world in the second half of the sixteenth century, but Braudel ranges back in history to the world of Odysseus and forward to our time,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060905662
• ISBN13: 9780060905668
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 642 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

From war to peace: the Mediterranean before and after 1580

The second volume of Braudel's history of the Mediterranean region in the late sixeenth century opens with the final half of Part Two ("Collective Destinies and General Trends"), which examines political realities (empires and states), as well as social history, from landlords and nobles to bandits and slaves. Additional sections discuss culture and "civilization" (and debates the very meaning of the word), the "ubiquity" and plight of Jewish communities, and warfare and piracy. While impressionistic and necessarily sketchy, these chapters are nevertheless among the best in both volumes. Throughout his work, Braudel repeatedly warns against such easy formulas that regard eras in terms of "rise and fall," emphasizing instead the cyclical nature of history and the "inter-relationship between change and the near-permanent." The quasi-bankruptcy of a national administration may correspond to a period of cultural renaissance, and vice versa, or might be simply a small blip on the chart of progress: "The long-term trends of civilizations, their flowering in the traditional sense of the word, can still surprise and disconcert us." Part Three ("Events, Politics and People"), which concludes the volume, contains a "linear" and more "traditional' history highlighting the wars (and peace) between states regionally and between empires on either end of the Mediterranean. Braudel draws a fairly distinct line at the year 1580, the first year of a period of relative peace between the Christian West, which turned its attention from the Mediterranean to northern Europe and the Atlantic, and the Islamic (Ottoman) East, which became preoccupied with Persia and the Balkans. Quite notably--and deliberately--the author omits reference to the Spanish or English Armadas of 1588 and 1589; his focus is what radiates "outward" from (and inward to) the Mediterranean, not the various events, however important, that occur on its peripheries. Braudel makes a compelling case here, but too much of this "narrative" displays a tedious preoccupation with the number of boats each side launched (or was rumored to have launched) against the other in the ongoing naval offensives between 1550 and 1596. It's one of the few sections in Braudel's history that reads more like a specialized monograph than a survey, and, while essential to his argument, the evidence could have been more succinctly presented. Even more so than the first volume, Braudel's history is a victim of its own success, since, inspired by his more universal approach, more accurate and compelling narrative histories of the late sixteenth century have been published during the last four decades. (Indeed, Braudel assumes the reader has more than a comfortable familiarity with the events and players he describes.) "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World" is still an unsurpassed monument of historiography, but general readers looking for a more thorough grounding in the politics, wars, and diplomacies of the period

Still the Undisputed Masterpiece

You need to have been an apprentice historian in the mid-sixties to appreciate the impact this book had on Europeanists. I was thirty-one years old in 1967. I had taught history in high school for eight years and picked up a master's in history at NYU, and I was starting my Ph. D. program in history at Yale, concentrating on early modern European history, and within that specialty, on medieval and early modern political theory. (Later, when I taught college, my specialty course was on Machiavelli, More, Erasmus and Guicciardini.) Braudel had just published the second edition of his masterpiece. The book had been significantly rewritten and was about a third longer than the original edition. But it was available only in French, which I read well but exceedingly slowly. The first edition --but not the second-- had been translated into Spanish, my preferred second language, so I swotted the Spanish first edition for orals. Reading it in a foreign language, it was too much in a limited amount of time to absorb and integrate with what I already knew about the times. I more or less flubbed the Braudel question in my orals. (In contrast, I did a killer job responding to a question about Ernst Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Liturgy.) Later, teaching a winter term course in college, I assigned the by-then-published English translation of Braudel's second edition to my students, giving myself --at long last-- an opportunity to read it in my native tongue. I was floored! The masterful use of maps and graphs to show hitherto unnoticed trends in history, the wealth of illustrative detail, the scope of his view! Of all the masterworks of the first two generations of Annales historians --Bloch and Febvre, Braudel's other works, Le Roy Ladurie, Aries, Duby, etc.-- Mediterranean is still the undisputed masterpiece on early modern European economic and social history.

A Well Balanced & Detailed Account Of A Fascinating Era.

This book is a very detailed starting point for fans of both the Renaissance & Capitalism. It was originally published in French in 1949. The book has eleven illustrations & fifty four lists of figures & is 643 pages long.It is divided into two huge parts with several chapters & sub chapters in each. Exs: Part 1, "The Role Of The Environment." Chapter1-The Peninsulas: Mountains, Plateaux, & Plains. Chapter2-The Heart Of The Mediterranean: Seas & Coasts. Chapter3-Boundaries: The Greater Mediterranean. Chapter4-The Mediterranean As A Physical Unit: Climate & History. Chapter5-The Mediterranean As A Human Unit: Communications & Cities. Part2, "Collective Destinies & General Trends." Chapter1-Economies: The Measures Of The Century. Chapter2-Economies: Precious Metals, Money, & Prices. Chapter3-Economies: Trade & Transport. Chapter4-Trade & Transport: The Sailing Ships Of The Atlantic. At its heart this is a socio-economic history of the second half of the sixteenth century Mediterranean world that we owe so much too. The authors depth & breadth of knowledge can be overwhelming at times, but never dull. The clever inclusion of the often ignored topics like climate and geographic conditions presuasively explained why prosperous Capitalism grew in some regions while others remained stagnant. Chapter 5-"The Human Unit" was the most informative. Most facets of history are here for the reader to absorb. This is the type of book we all wished we had in school.

An Amazing and Exhausting Opus

Braudel's text on the Mediterranean is considered one of the contemporary classics of historical writing, and I can see why. It sets out to convey a total history of the Mediterranean world in the latter half of the 16th century, but ranges over so much more territory in order to achieve this objective. Just as Jared Diamond builds a foundation on geography, climate, and local flora and fauna in _Guns, Germs , and Steel_, so does Braudel begin his history. However, he does not stop there, and moves on to cover social and economic history, and, in the second volume, deals with the more standard "history of events" typical of most historical literature. Do not skip the second volume, as the tapestry Braudel weaves is not complete without it. The text is very detailed, too detailed at points, but I believe this gives the reader confidence in the authority of the writer. Clearly Braudel has done exhaustive research. You, too, will be exhausted by the time you finish this magnum opus.

Kings, Pepper and the Turks: a Time of Transition.

This is one of the essential books that bring a solid perspective on what is the reality of history, not what commentators or national prides would like it to be.. Braudel is one of the most gifted historians of this century, and few like him can go into the inner workings of the social and economical mechanisms that drive history, really. In this well written volume, excellently translated, one sees clearly where laid the "center" of the Western world in the XVI century: The Mediterranean. Assuredly, the gold of the Americas was coming in; and the North Sea and Baltic trades were going on briskly. Nevertheless, Venice still mattered. The Mediterranean links remained the prize for Spain, the Ottoman empire and whomever had access to the locked sea. Yet, the future was close and the through the XVI there were clear signs of the shifts in power to come. Mr. Braudel work is as comprehensive as it gets. This is a gigantic canvas of the Mediterranean of the time, from its geographical and climatic descriptions, to the way that the Ottoman Empire raised money for its needs. We do not have a single hero in this almost novelistic type of work, everybody gets its turn under the sun. The result is a deeper understanding of where we come from. Even if today you live in Fairbanks, Alaska, you will feel strangely linked to the Venetian Pepper trade of the times.....