Status Updates From Out of Italy

Reading it primarily to get a taste of braudels history writing. Some reviews already mention it being uncharacteristic for him due to being more of a brief overview under a premise (competition for greatness - will need to find out what he understands with this term). Nonetheless I am curious about his prose, and the topic of emergence and dissemination of Italian renaissance culture itself is always on my menu10

The way I would describe it is to say that if his two master works are like huge Reubens oil paintings then this is like a Reubens drawing: same style, almost all the detail and shading gone but still an excellent delineation.