The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II

La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II #2

by Fernand Braudel, Richard Lawrence Ollard, Siân Reynolds (Translator)

Looks at how geography has shaped the history of the Mediterranean, focusing on life in the sixteenth century

Genres: History, Nonfiction, European History, Economics, World History, Renaissance, Geography

690 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Fernand Paul Achille Braudel was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects: The Mediterranean (1923–49, then 1949–66), Civilization and Capitalism (1955–79), and the unfinished Identity of France (1970–85). His reputation stems in part from his writings, but even more from his success in making the Annales School the most important engine of historical research in France and much of the world after 1950. As the dominant leader of the Annales School of historiography in the 1950s and 1960s, he exerted enormous influence on historical writing in France and other countries.

Braudel has been considered one of the greatest of the modern historians who have emphasized the role of large-scale socioeconomic factors in the making and writing of history. He can also be considered as one of the precursors of world-systems theory.

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the age of Philip II was according to historical legend largely composed by Fernand Braudel in a Prisoner of war camp during WWII. The enforced captivity provided the stillness necessary for the years of education and time spent working as a teacher in French North Africa to settle and condense into this book.

First published in 1949, revised for a second edition in 1965, translated into English & published in 1972, I bought a copy many years ago as an A-level student and didn't read it. Instead like one of the book's pirates I raided it occasionally to supply my school and student essays. The bulk of the book, its reputation, its pages oozing with scholarship kept me away as effectively as a Spanish Tercio or the sight of Turkish Sipahis menacing in the distance. This was a mistake.

A mistake because my overall impression of the second volume (since on account of my grievous sins I still haven't read the first) is warmth. You sink down into the sixteenth century Mediterranean (mostly just the western half of it) and are enclosed by it. You are led through Empires, societies and civilisations to events. From Lepanto you gaze out past watch towers and fortifications to the peasant in the field and at the same time see the event as part of the rivalry between Spain and the Ottomans in which, as in the Cold War, when one arms, the other must arm too and when one turns to another focus of conflict the attention of the other can turn as well. In this book there is a sense of both the dirt under the finger nails and of far horizons as a unified whole, an effect produced by Braudel immersing the reader in detail, building a mosaic rather than painting a broad-brush high level analysis.

The downside of this mighty work is that despite the title it is mainly focused on the western Mediterranean. Time and again Braudel draws attention to how much our knowledge is limited because of what has and what has not been uncovered and researched from the archives, and the absence of information from the Ottoman archives is particularly striking. Having said that, just looking at the map on page 662 of this edition showing the settlement patterns of Bulgarians, Tatars, Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Balkans at the beginning of the 16th century shows the range and depth of generations of study brought to bear - as well in those pre-desk top computer days, a lot of work on the part of a cartographer.

Despite the age of the book it remains fresh and thought-provoking, this I think because of Braudel's perspectives. Going further than the title of his book Braudel shows the reader the ambitions of the Ottomans against Persia, in southern Russia, the Red Sea to the Arabian Ocean or of Spain in the Netherlands in Vienna and in the Vatican and feels how they impact upon the politics and policies of the Sultan or the most Catholic King. There is a lot here to pick over, explore and be developed, for example the paragraphs and illustrative map with travel time scales showing the Spanish supply route from Castile to the Netherlands that later became the centre piece of Geoffrey Parker's early work.
 
For a briefer introductory taste of Braudel's approach and style I recommend Chapter Two "Daily Bread" of The Structures of Everyday Life which is volume one of his series "Civilisation and Capitalism 15th-18th Century.

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's wonderful to be immersed in the world of Braudel's mind again.

After a gap of at least ten years I’ve finally read volume II of Fernand Braudel’s great history The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Volume I. It’s taken me a couple of months since I finished it to write up these notes.

Braudel is one of those rare historians who can formulate and sustain theories across a broad sweep of interests and geographical scope and illustrate them with detailed case studies from incredibly diverse sources.

His focus was on the “progress of civilisation” that was concerned with the events of everyday life, not simply the great events or people. Braudel broke with the historical narrative of the past by incorporating all of the social sciences in his work. His work challenges us to consider the long durée rather than concentrate on the short term. Concerns for the environment that shape economic progress are foremost in his writing, especially geography. (History Today).

The starting point for his research was a doctoral study of Spanish politics under Philip II, but he found he wanted to integrate history with the other human sciences and to acknowledge the Mediterranean’s own unique ‘time’. The three volume The Mediterranean evolved into ‘a fantastic phantasmagoria of colours, of countries, of men, of great events, and little anecdotes, bound together by threads of shared experience and given life by vast movements of the natural world’.

This second volume, Braudel writes in his Introduction, is a ‘history of groups, collective destinies, and general trends. This is a social history, whose subject is man, human beings and not “things”’. It is concerned with social structures and their change and stability over time; with chapters relating to economic systems, states, societies, civilisations, trade and exchange and forms of war.

Throughout, he questions existing theories, sometimes flatly rejecting them. He cannot accept, for instance, that the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 deprived Spain of a vigorous bourgeoisie. ‘The truth is that a commercial bourgeoisie had never developed in Spain in the first place … owing to the implantation there of a harmful international capitalism, that of the Genoese bankers and their equivalents’. (p416).
He takes time to note the continuing influence of Arabic culture in Spain long after the expulsion of the Moors– place names, culinary habits, certain trades and structures and the Arabic artistic tradition.

He also points to areas needing more research, sometimes detailed and local, sometimes incredibly wide – eg on economic patterns across Europe and the Ottoman lands. I can’t help wondering how many doctoral theses have been prompted by his works.

Two great themes emerge as sources of conflict between Mediterranean states themselves and with their neighbours during this period. The first was the struggle between east and west – fundamentally a cultural conflict in which changing power balances over time affected the direction of the economic and cultural current (p390). He asks whether it was the religious and dynastic divisions in Europe in the early seventeenth Century and the Thirty Years War which fostered ‘illusions of Ottoman strength’? (394).

The second source of hatreds and warfare was religion, which he saw as the basis of civilisations, distinguishing between Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox versions of Christianity; Islam and Judaism. Each has their own version of the truth, he says, and the neighbour’s version is never acceptable (p417).

Quick notes and quotes:
The Jews have their own section in Civilisations chapter, where Braudel discusses the nature of Jewish civilisation, describing it as ‘dispersed, scattered like tiny drops of oil, over the deep waters of other civilisations, never truly blending with them yet always dependent on them’.

‘He who gives, dominates’. During this period, the whole Mediterranean world spread its cultures in all directions – into northern and Eastern Europe, Asia, North Africa and the Americas.

The Baroque, ‘designates the civilisation of the Christian Mediterranean’, drawing its strength from the ‘huge spiritual force of the Holy Roman Empire and from the huge temporal force of the Spanish Empire’ (418). Rome and Spain were great centres of cultural diffusion.

Warfare is ‘a powerful and persistent undercurrent of human life. During [this period] … war punctuated the year with its rhythms, opening and closing the gates of time. Even when the fighting was over, it exerted a hidden pressure, surviving underground’ (428). Subheadings in this chapter: Formal War: Naval Squadrons and Fortified Frontiers; Piracy: A substitute for Declared War which includes state-sponsored privateering and capturing prisoners for ransom.

It has voluminous notes, coloured illustrations and 40 pages of detailed figures but no index, which I sorely miss.

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand...

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

As noted in my review of Vol. I (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), Vol, II, likewise, falls into two separate parts or fascicles, and the whole work (as I there indicated) should have been published in four parts, rather than in two. This would have had the great advantage of making the magnificent Part I (on the longue durée) far more accessible to a broader reading public. It can still be read (and even published now) as a separate volume. And I highly recommend it (the first part of vol. I) to everyone as a “MUST read”.

Vol. II consists, first of all (pp. 657-900), of the second half of Part II (on the intermediate-term). It is far more interesting than was the first half of Part II (on “Economies”; see my review of Vol. I). This second half deals with Empires, Societies, and Civilizations (and distinguishes these three) and, finally, with War (both formal and informal – that is, with piracy and brigandage). Though less coherent than Part I, it contains many passages of great and general interest. The rest of the volume (901-1244; there follows 131 pages on sources, bibliography, indices) contains a long, detailed, and highly traditional narrative history of an obscure and unimportant period of time – the 30-35 year period during the reign (mostly) of Philip II (from 1550-1580/1584) and his struggle to maintain his position in the Mediterranean against the Ottoman Turks. This period is obscure and unimportant because, as Braudel says, after centuries of brilliance in the Mediterranean, the center of gravity had by this time already shifted in Europe to the Atlantic (and even the Turks had by now turned their attention eastwards, to Asia). Even Lepanto is nothing but an episode, he thinks, with no significance and little resonance. In fact, Philip’s great error may well have been not moving his capital to Lisbon after 1580, but remaining instead in dead waters (essentially) in the geometrical center of the Iberian Peninsular.

The final section is not terribly interesting (and I admit to having read it very lightly): a long narrative of an unimportant period (see above), that is, moreover, tightly focused merely on what Braudel calls the ‘event’, “the ephemera of history; they pass across its stage like fireflies, hardly glimpsed before they settle back into darkness and…oblivion” (901). These are the short-term fluctuations, popping and vanishing like quarks in the grand accelerator of history…. By contrast, the broad rhythms, the geography and the longue durée of Part I, is referred to as “structure” (though he does not mean it in the sense taken by contemporary French philosophy; see below); while the intermediate constructions of societies and empires and economies is called, in the Braudel’s terminology, “conjuncture”. The historian’s task is largely to show how ‘structure’ and ‘conjuncture’ interact and interweave to produce the warp and woof of the tapestry of history.

What, then, of ‘event’? “Alongside such problems [of structure and conjuncture],” says Braudel at the very end of the book (1242ff.), “the role of the individual and the event [“the pieces of flotsam I have combed from the historical ocean”] necessarily dwindles…”. And they do not much interest Braudel; they are not essential. He quote Lawrence Durrell: “Under the formal pageant of events which we have dignified by our interest, the land [for Durrell, too, the Mediterranean] changes very little, and the structure of the basic self of man hardly at all”.

And what, then, of the individual…? of ‘freedom’. Braudel admits that he is not a philosopher, and that he does not like “to dwell for long” over questions of this sort. Indeed, when all is said and done, what kind of freedom does a nation have…? Or a man? “What degree of freedom was possessed… by Don John of Austria as he rode at anchor among his ships…? Each of these so-called freedoms seems to me to resemble a tiny island, almost a prison…. I would conclude (1243f.) with the paradox that the true man of action is he who can measure most nearly the constraints upon him, who chooses to remain within them and even to take advantage of the weight of the inevitable, exerting his own pressure in the same direction. All efforts against the prevailing tide of history – which is not always obvious – are doomed to failure. So, when I think of the individual, I am always inclined to see him imprisoned within a destiny in which he himself has little hand, fixed in a landscape in which the infinite perspectives of the long term stretch into the distance both behind him and before. In historical analysis as I see it, rightly or wrongly, the long run always wins in the end. Annihilating innumerable events – all those which cannot be accommodated in the main ongoing current and which are therefore ruthlessly swept to one side – it indubitably limits both the freedom of the individual and even the role of chance. I am by temperament a ‘structuralist’, little tempted by the event, or even by the short-term conjuncture, which is after all merely a grouping of events in the same area. But the historian’s ‘structuralism’ has nothing to do with the approach which under the same name is at present causing some confusion in the other human sciences. It does not tend towards the mathematical abstraction of relations expressed as functions, but instead towards the very sources of life in its most concrete, everyday, indestructible and anonymously human expression.”

Not the ‘structuralism’ of Levi-Strauss, but the “descriptive detail” of Braudel.

Still – a major question remains. Why the 16th cen., a dead water of history. Indeed, Lucien Febvre had urged Braudel, in the late 1920’s, to do his dissertation on the History of France – a sort of ‘Languedoc’ writ-large, I suppose. This was the topic to which Braudel turned at the end of his life and left incomplete. But Braudel decided, against the advice of his revered teacher, to focus on the Mediterranean – and on the 16th cen, of all things! Why?

The answer appears early on in vol. II.

The Mediterranean for Braudel is not merely a ‘society’ (which is a relatively short-term phenomenon), but a ‘civilization’, a unity, which goes back to antiquity. ‘Civilizations’, however, in his view, are not organisms, ‘biological’ fluctuations that are born, that grow, and die. He is opposed to the so-called ‘Civilizationists’ like Spengler and Toynbee or Othmar Span -- like Spengler, another fascist -- (he refers to them as the “universalist” school”; 1240), who espouse a tightly cyclical view of history that goes back to Goethe (Spengler explicitly relied on Goethe’s ‘method’ that reduced all living forms to a biological structure) and, beyond that, to the work of Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), who claimed that all civilizations necessarily have the three fundamental stages of birth, maturity, and decay – or what he called the Heroic (i.e., the archaic), Civilization (i.e., a classical stage), and a decadent, modernist phase (his barbarie della riflessione).

While Braudel does not claim (for how could he..!) that ‘civilizations’ are immortal, they have, nonetheless, a solidity far greater than most believe. “They are not indestructible, but they are many times more solid than one might imagine.” They are like the continents… “They have withstood a thousand supposed deaths, their massive bulk unmoved by the monotonous pounding of the centuries” (II:775f.). They are, unlike ‘societies’ (which are ‘conjunctures’), like continents, part of the longue durée.

Braudel is sympathetic to cycles, however (893ff.). He is familiar with the work of Kondratieff. History is like the ebbs and swells of the sea. Indeed, for Braudel the long depression which followed the Black Death, and which lasted for a century (c. 1350-1450), was followed by a great upsurge, beginning about 1450 or 1470, and which expressed itself in the brilliance of the High Renaissance, but which then began its decline around 1630-1650, around the time of the coming of the so-called Little Ice Age. Climate-cycles and population cycles are of fundamental importance for Braudel.
(There is an Annales inspired book on the role of climate and history by Le Roy Ladurie:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...)

This is the “long 16th century” – this period from c. 1470 to c. 1650. And it is a coherent whole. A historical bull market, so to speak.

But despite their late splendors (it is often the autumn that flowers most beautifully, he thinks; see 899f.), the 16th-17th centuries were, in the Mediterranean (but also the Ottomans), an age already in or on the verge of decline. Culturally, it was the ‘Baroque’ (under which he gathers both ‘Mannerism’ and ‘Rococo’). Baroque, he thinks, was originally a southern phenomenon (though later transferred to southern Germany and Austria, and even France) and was in its origin the arm and weapon of the Counter Reformation. His discussion on this point is quite original and, though brief, utterly fascinating (II:826-835).

But it was also an age that saw the beginnings of a new birth: not only because there was a turn from the ‘mare nostrum’, and towards the Atlantic; and not only because (though it was this, too, of course) it saw the birth of Capitalism (the subject of Braudel’s massive trilogy, << Civilization and Capitalism: 15th-18th Century >>, to which he turned on the completion of << The Mediterranean >>); but, still more importantly, because the 16th-17th century was the moment that saw the convergence, all at once, “of the slow rhythms of…economic conjunction” throughout the whole known world “which [and this is the key!] in the sixteenth century saw the beginning of its existence as a unit” (p. 844).

In other words, the “long 16th century” saw the formation of the first (and only) world-system (to use Wallerstein’s language), which was the capitalist world-system. As such, it is correct to say that Braudel (against the ‘Civilizationists’; see above) anticipated modern world-systems theory.

After Braudel and Wallerstein, many have sought to identify the existence of pre-capitalist world-systems – e.g., Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony (a fascinating book), argued that there existed a Mongol and other 13th cen. world-systems (four, in fact, contemporaneous systems); or Andre Gunder Frank, who argued for the existence of an Asian, pre-Western world-system, dating back to the 4th cen. BCE; or Andry Korotayev, who (using highly mathematical models) connects the beginnings of the world-system with the Neolithic revolution (c. 10,000 BCE). Braudel sides with Wallerstein.

The various Wiki articles on all this are useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-sy...
as is also Stephen K. Sanderson (ed.), Civilizations and World Systems:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...

[Feliks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know what I was thinking; I don't know what possessed me when I thought I would attempt to read this book. I must have been out-of-my-mind, insane. But, I did it. By hook and by crook ...I made it to the end. An act of sheer stubborn willpower. But, it did not best me! I have that to hold on to...and from now on, should any of you wish to know the history of gypsy goat-herds of the 16th century, or the paths they took through the Carpathian Mountains in the summer...if you wish to know where the fleets of the Spanish Armada had their sails stitched...if you seek details on the price of prostitutes in Phoenician ports reused by Berber pirates in 1690....I am your man! Direct all inquiries via my solicitor, all mail will be forwarded on to Bellevue Hospital, New York.

[Steve]

Professor Braudel continues his second volume on the Mediterranean with the same excellence established in the first. I did feel the pages weighed heavier once he entered the chronological history from 1550 to 1600, the third and final part of his combined work. He acknowledged the difficulties in this section. “Events are the ephemera of history; they pass across its stage like fireflies, hardly glimpsed before they settle back into darkness and as often as not into oblivion.” There are so many actors entering and exiting this drama, making it difficult for me to keep track of the principal historical threads. Then there were the unfamiliar place names, like the frequently mentioned Ragusa, which we now know as Dubrovnik. Most of the primary confrontations involved Spain, France, the Italian states and the Turks, with the grandest being the Battle of Lepanto that fateful September day in 1571. As an aside, the colorful discussion of omnipresent Mediterranean brigandage brought to mind the lawlessness of modern Mexico, to pick on just one country. What a dangerous world we inhabit, as always.

Professor Braudel created the impression that the geopolitical system was in constant change throughout the latter half of the sixteenth century with Christians at war with Muslims, Catholics at war with Protestants, neighbors battling neighbors, regardless of religious orientation. Reading of this era was akin to witnessing a battle royal with everyone eventually coming to arms against each other, until attention suddenly turned from the Mediterranean, toward the Atlantic for the Iberians, toward Persia for the Turks, with no looking back.

This is a wonderful work, an example of superlative research and historical method. Professor Braudel was a prominent structuralist, seeing history as less about the individual and more about significant physical factors combined with long-term social and economic themes. We see this in modern times with histories that give undo attention to kings and presidents, neglecting the importance of, say, agricultural production, access to raw materials, climate, technology, or population trends. While structuralism appeals, I don’t think I can entirely subscribe to this way of thought. Now witnessing a world where an unhinged world leader – of which there appears to be at least one – can end our lives with a thermonuclear tantrum, it seems the individual really does matter, now more than ever.

[Rindis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Braudel's massive scholarly treatment of the Mediterranean from 1550 to 1600 is in three parts split between two volumes. However, even with part two being split between volumes, there is a change in direction at the volume break.

Part two deals with long term trends, and stuck to fairly abstruse subjects such as the economy in volume one. The first chapter in volume two is 'Empires'. This is an examination of the two poles of the Mediterranean: Spain and the Ottomans. From there he looks at society, civilization and warfare before moving on to a more regular history of the period in part three. Being of the annales school of history, he is almost apologetic for including it, but argues that it has its place too.

In many ways, the centerpiece of part 3 is the battle of Lepanto. While the description of the battle itself only takes a couple of pages, an entire chapter is devoted to event around the battle. History has often recorded the battle as a great spectacle—which lead nowhere. Braudel argues that while it did not lead to further successes, it did bring the erosion of the Christian world to a halt, and break a defeatist sentiment that had taken root.

Like the first half, it is a truly massive undertaking, and well deserving of its status of one of the landmarks of 20th century historiography. It is by far the more readable and interesting half for the non-academic historian, but at the same time revealed less of the sixteenth century from its archives.

[Hana]

While looking for something else I found this treasure on a dusty top shelf of my library, which is not vast at all, it's just that I'm kind of short and lazy.

There were two other treasures on my dusty (now clean) top shelf: A Short History of Byzantium and From Pagan Rome to Byzantium. Now the only question is which of the three books do I read/re-read first?

[Caterina · Rating 4 out of 5]

★★★★☆

Neden 4 yıldız diyecek olursanız içerik ve yazardan ziyade yayınevine bir tepki diyebilirim. Hacimli bir kitabı sırf baskı maliyetini azaltmak için korkunç bir şekilde piyasaya sürmüşler. Kitapları nazik kullanmaya çalışan, korumak için elinden geleni yapan bir insanım fakat eser ele alır almaz dağıldı.

Bir kere okunup bir daha ele alınmayacak bir eser olsa aldırmam belki ama belli bir dönem için çok değerli bilgiler içerdiğinden belli dönemlerde yeniden göz atmak gerekecek ve bu haliyle nasıl idare edeceğim bilemiyorum.

Bunun dışında, bazı kelimelerin çevrilmeden bırakılmış olması kendi adıma büyük sıkıntıydı. Çoğu zaman sözlük desteği almak durumunda kaldım. İngilizce baskıda da aynı durum varmış. (Via: Sevgili Seyyah Kudema)

Dip notlar ve geniş coğrafyaya dair tam bir bilgi deposu olan eseri zamana yayarak ve çapraz okuma yaparak tamamladım. Sayfalarca not aldığım da doğrudur ama yine de yeterli miydi? Kesinlikle hayır! Belli bir zaman sonra yeniden okumak gerekir gibi hissediyorum...

Döneme ve alana ilgisi olanları mutlu edecek bir eser velhasıl...

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume II of Fernand Braudel's "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II" almost succeeds in its great ambition to be a history of the Mediterranean that integrates the long term ("longue durée") with the short term ("courte durée") or history of events ( "histoire événementielle.")
Volume I contains a "Part One" which covers the very long term geological and climatic history of the Mediterranean. Also in Volume I is the first half of "Part Two" that covers economic trends. Volume II finishes Part II with sections on social and cultural trends before covering the wars and diplomatic manoeuvres during the reign of King Philip II (1554-1598).
Braudel's big argument is that the Mediterranean World was a unified set of economic and social systems that constituted the core of European civilization. The discoveries of America and of a sea route to India at first added to new systems to the Mediterranean World before converting the once peripheral Atlantic Ocean into the primary route of communication and making the once dominant Mediterranean a tributary system . At the end of the book, Philip has established a court in Lisbon on the Atlantic Ocean. After fifty years of war between Spain and Turkey for the control of the once strategically important Mediterranean, the two parties cease their fighting because the prize has lost most of its value. At a very high level, Braudel may be right but his chronicle of the events of Philip II's reign provide no proof for his thesis. Braudel in other words fails to convincingly link the short and long term histories.
Despite my reservations, Braudel's Volume II is still a fine book and the complete two volume history is without question a masterpiece.

[James Culbertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading the first volume, I had to learn how it turned out for the Turks.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roughly eight years after starting the second volume of this work of "total history" -- and reading thousands of pages of other Braudel writing in the meantime -- I've finally buttoned up this one . As Braudel goes, this was clearly painful to write: the first chapters are truly "structural" in nature, concerned with the "long term" (empires, societies, forms of war in the mid 16th c. Mediterranean), "events, politics, and people" was surely a chore for the man and his army of research assistants to complete. That said, the "events" section is still worthwhile because consequences of events and personal decisions are downplayed even as vast heaps of documents from several major archives (not from Turkey or many Italian cities, to Braudel's chagrin) are quoted from to make these points.

I read about 75% of vol. 1 in grad school in a seminar taught by (now Harvard) prof Alejandro de la Fuente, who was as Braudel-obsessed as a person can come (his second major book, on Cuba in the Atlantic world, was Braudel-lite). This book I began reading as one of many massive tomes kept in the "crapper john" pile, poking away at it with each BM and bidet-washing. Finishing it now is bittersweet as it means I need to complete long-term "crapper john" classics such as The Wheels of Commerce (50% finished) and The Perspective of the World (70-75%). Ah well. Such is the work. Here for it.

"The true man of action is he who can measure most nearly the constraints upon him, who chooses to remain within them and even to take advantage of the weight of the inevitable, exerting his own pressure in the same direction. All efforts against the prevailing tide of history, which is not always obvious, are doomed to failure. So when I think of the individual, I am always inclined to see him imprisoned within a destiny in which he himself has little hand, fixed in a landscape in which the infinite perspectives of the long term stretch into the distance both behind him and before. In historical analysis as I see it, rightly or wrongly, the long run always wins in the end."

[Anıl Karzek · Rating 5 out of 5]

After 62 hours of reading, writing, often crying and most notably amazed by the mastermind of Braudel, I've just finished both volumes of The Mediterranean, which will form the bulk of my thesis. I love the fact that old-school historians (Zinkeisen, von Hammer, Ranke, Michelet) considered agents played a role so crucial that the history shaped around events determined by such figures, and Braudel, shined-out with his "Longue durèe" approach. The structure-agent argument is still relevant to today's historical debates. But specific events such as Preveza (1538) or Lepanto (1571) indicate "that glittering layer on the surface of history we shall find that the ripples (...) spread silently, inconspicuously, far and wide" (1088).

[Seyyah Kudema · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitaptaki İspanyolca, İtalyanca, Latince ve bir kaç Almanca alintı da dipnotlarla tercüme edilseydi çok güzel olurdu.

Akdeniz'in ekonomik, sosyal, siyasi, askeri ve kültürel cephelerine ilişkin çok değerli bilgiler içeriyor. İstatistikleri kullanarak devri açıklamaya çalışırken insan ve toplumdan kopmaması da çok etkileyiciydi.

[Tony Gualtieri · Rating 5 out of 5]

My second reading of this. It's a masterpiece of historical thinking with a symphonic structure and flowing, almost conversational prose, built on a deep understanding of archival sources. The use of statistical visualizations to summarize these documents is nonpareil. At the time of writing, the Ottoman Empire was not as extensively researched in the West as one would wish, leading to a skewed interpretation.

[Rob Marney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although Braudel can lose himself in the weeds in the final sections detailing the policy of Philip II and the endless exchange of letters, his shift to societies and events in the second volume really brings home the benefit of the 10,000 foot view of the first volume. We grow to understand the immense expense of war, the necessity of rebuilding galleys and the near impossibility of conducting timely military campaigns on them. We see the symmetry of Spain and Turkey, defenders of the faith mired in conflict on three sides, reliant on colonial trade to drag the empire out of a medieval economy. The sweep of this book is magnificent.

[Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is magisterial in scope and I think it is possibly the best 2 volume treatment of the Mediterranean area in the early modern age. This is in no way a dry narrative, as Braudel begins with a detailed geographic description of the Mediterranean basin and describes the impact of the differing climates and terrain on the people and growth of towns and cities. He describes how living conditions changed within a few thousand feet of elevation and the impact of terrain on communication. His analysis on climate and geography on economic development is a significant aspect of this book. His section on economics was perhaps the most interesting, as nothing seemed too trivial for his attention. He analyzed how distances and modes of travel impacted wages and prices in areas such as Valencia, and connected this to cereal prices and other types of income from land. He also analyzed the impact of silver imports from the New World with the same level of detail, such as how this influx of silver affected tradesmen as it impacted prices of all commodities. In examining political entities, Braudel explored the creation of political units and how this connected to poverty and banditry, as well as the social strata of the various political units in the region. He also examined the Jews as a community within a community, and how they affected the political, social and economic development of the regions.
The book was sometimes overwhelming, but always fascinating, and the amount of research is simply staggering. Braudel was a member of the Annales school, along with Bloch (Feudal Society) and Duby (Revelations of the Medieval World; The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined)and the Annales are known for this type of scholarship.

[Олег Магдич · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Скелет" книги Фернан Бродель сформулював ще в німецькому концтаборі, де він перебував як військовополонений, а після звільнення фактично нарощував "м'ясом". Саме тут дослідник вперше використав метоолгічні принципи, які потім лягли в основу ІІ покоління "Школи Анналів" - принцип "історичного часу", "тотальної історії" , довготривалих структур і особливо "світ-система".
Так всеохопно Середземноморський регіон до Броделя ще не представляв. Автор ніби робить Ctrl+C регіону "у його повній тотальності" і згодом CTRL+V на сторінки. Для дослідника Середземне море - світ система, яку власне і з'єднують у longue durée. ( у цій праці даний принцип автором розпрацбовано найкраще). Однак тут уже помітні специфічні для усіх подальших броделівських текстів риси: величезна кількість фактів, їх аналіз, але мала кількість висновків, що загалом не підмиває цінності цієї книги.
P.S. У порівнянні з подальшими працями це дослідження Броделя читається найлегше

[Erazmo1986 · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a historiography masterpiece, but with some limits. He tried to discribe some micro histories, it was nice try but there is several obvious errors I will mention one when he discribed secret diplomacy talks between Spaniards and Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic. He said that Mehmed had Serbian origins, who was born in Trebinje(that is not true) and he made negotiations on CROATIAN language which is normal because Trebinje is near Dubrovnik. What a construction! However Braudel is great historian.

[B. Ross Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very difficult read, even in translation, but Braudel was capable of making hte supply of bread to Venice in the early modern period interesting!

[Ned · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much fun.

[Tom Ritman-Meer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant work of 'total history'.

[Brad Eastman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume II picks up exactly where Volume I ended. I am not sure that the book was split at a logical dividing point, but only at the midpoint of this 1200 page monster (excluding 70 pages of bibliography). Volume II focuses much more on the history of Spain in the 16th Century - the transition from Carlos V to Phillip II. This is also the time when Spain assumed a world-spanning empire and the focus of the empire turned away from Mediterranean affairs to Atlantic affairs. At this time, Spain was decoupled from the Holy Roman Empire and England and Holland were rising as major world powers, while the Ottoman empire began its long decline. As with Volume I, having a good grounding in European geography and familiarity with the Hapsburgs is a must. I am not sure how people read this book before Wikipedia.

[Anya Eberle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Braudel describes the 16th century in the Mediterranean as the "long agony." In just two words, Braudel has described the process of reading his own book. This book clearly was revolutionary for its day and was written by a man who knew a lot, but it turns out that writing a historical monograph almost entirely while serving time in a POW camp isn't always good for the research process. His breadth is impressive and he is fairer to the Ottomans and the significance of geographical history than those before him. Braudel relies on sweeping generalizations with limited specific citations (refer to the location of the writing process to understand this creative choice) and leans too hard into the idea that people have no say at all in their own destinies. In essence, Braudel has written a Marxist history without the working class, resulting in a rather dull reading experience.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Braudel's masterful look at the Mediterranean comes in three flavors: geography, systems, and, somewhat reluctantly, events. All three are fascinating and explored at great length and detail. If I have one regret it's that Braudel is writing before much research was done on the Ottoman Empire and so this book is somewhat overly focused on the Spanish and Italian side of events, because that's where the research was. But that's a minor quibble about a masterpiece.

[Daniel Osores · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tomo 2 de la monumental obra de Braudel. ¿Qué se puede decir que no se haya dicho de este libro? Es tremendo, una viva imagen de las sociedades alrededor del mar Mediterráneo durante el siglo XVI, en la cual el autor parece cubrir cada uno de los resquicios de la vida cotidiana y política de los personajes históricos y las sociedades. Nada más que decir. Obra maestra. Recomendado a todos.

[Ryan Fischer]

Wild that this has a higher average rating than the first volume - must be survivorship bias. This is definitely the lesser volume - Braudel announces that he's not interested in the political history, and it does show (he chases a lot of side narratives and debates), but I really enjoyed the work overall.

[Wang · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's good, but not suitable for beginners and you have to have pretty solid background knowledge.

[Andreas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written, but section III (the traditional narration) was a terrible slog.

[Francesco Zipparo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slightly better than the first volume, but still excruciatingly boring.

[Ferda Nihat Koksoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

AKDENİZ -Mekân, Tarih, İnsanlar ve Miras-
-Mezopotamya Uygarlığı, Fırat ve Dicle boyunca tulumlu sallarla aşağıya doğru gidip, eşeklerle geri dönme sistemi üzerine kuruluydu.

-M.Ö.1450 civarında patlayan SANTORINI VOLKANI, Girit-Miken Uygarlığının çöküşüne ve Yahudilerin Mısır'dan çıkışına tekabül etmektedir.

-M.Ö.6.yy. Pers-Kartaca İmparatorluklarının sınırları, yaklaşık olarak güncel İslamın sınırlarına; Roma İmparatorluğunun sınırları ise Hıristiyanlığın sınırlarına tekabül eder.
-Atina Uygarlığında KADIN, erkekten çok az hakka sahiptir; ayine ve tapınağa gidemez, mezarlığa girebilir ve ölü arkasından ağıt yakabilir (bu sırada erkekler ölü evinin yemeğini yemektedir)

-Paskalya öncesindeki haftada katolikler İsa'nın ölümüne ağıt yakarken, ortodokslar İsa'nın doğumuna sevinirler.

-GERÇEK kavramını Yunan/Slav dillerinde ifade eden PRAVDA kelimesi, tanrısallık/aşkınlık/adalet içerirken, Latin dillerindeki karşılığı olan VERITAS kelimesi ise insanilik/akılcılık/hiyerarşi kavramlarına içkindir. Toplumların kültürel geçmişleri, algılarında ve dillerinde önemli farklılıklara yol açar.

-Çömlekçilikte ayak çarkının, tarlada da pullukun geliştirilmesi, üretimi önemli anlamda değiştirmiş, pazarları genişletmiştir.

-Avrupa'da 19.yy. öncesinde insanların %80-90'ı köylerde yaşamaktaydı ve proteini çok kıt bir yaşam sürüyordu; insanın bugünkü uygarlığı, aslında son dönemlerde çok hızlanarak gelişmiştir.