The Mediterranean: And the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (Volume II)

"The Mediterranean World" comes in at a stunning 600,000 words. The average book has about 100,000 words. Originally, published in three volumes, the English edition was published in two rather thick volumes. If you are considering the second volume, I would imagine that you have already finished the first half and have enjoyed it. However, it takes some fortitude to finish the entire work.I most enjoyed the last third of his book. This is when Braudel enters the world of people and events. This is the area of history that is most thrilling and easy to follow. It is also the segment of history that Braudel distrusts the most. He sees this ephemeral history as being the most unreliable because it is driven by human passions and memories. For the final third of his masterpiece, Braudel delivers a more conventional history. All the big events and important figures are carefully chronicled. The joy of the last third is to see how the themes of the first two thirds of the work are developed and concluded in the final third. There is a magisterial detachment that is beautiful to read.I highly recommend the second volume to all those who have spent the time and effort to get through the first volume. All of your hard work will be richly rewarded. Highly recommended!

A truly glorious work, invaluable as a reference source for anyone doing research on the period! It has only one flaw: the author has provided no index.

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A landmark work published in the late 1940s and then revised extensively and republished in the 1960s. Braudel attempted to present a kind of total history of the early modern Mediterranean region. Derived from many years of study and based on a remarkable depth of scholarship, Braudel may not have accomplished this impossible goal but probably came as close as is humanly possible. Braudel's subsequently famous phrase describing his approach is "structure and conjuncture." Structure refers to the major underlying features driving historical processes. These include natural features such as geography and climate but also human features such as demography, major economic trends, and technological innovation. Conjuncture is the interaction of structural features among themselves but also with institutions of human societies and contingent events that produce the actual sequence of events recorded conventionally as history. Braudel aimed to connect structure with conjuncture and to a considerable extent succeeded. Braudel's approach also explicitly set aside traditional national boundaries and historographies in pursuit of a more realistic depiction of early modern historical experience.Braudel may not have accomplished this impossible goal but probably came as close as is humanly possible. Braudel's subsequently famous phrase describing his approach is "structure and conjuncture." Structure refers to the major underlying features driving historical processes. These include natural features such as geography and climate but also human features such as demography, major economic trends, and technological innovation. Conjuncture is the interaction of structural features among themselves but also with institutions of human societies and contingent events that produce the actual sequence of events recorded conventionally as history. Braudel aimed to connect structure with conjuncture and to a considerable extent succeeded. Braudel's approach also explicitly set aside traditional national boundaries and historographies in pursuit of a more realistic depiction of early modern historical experience.Volume 1 covers the geography and climate features of the Mediterranean basin in considerable detail, tincluding how geographic features influenced human societies in the premodern age. Described in considerable detail are the varying nature of rural societies in different regions, the nature of rural economic life, trade and the technologies needed for trade, urban life, and demography. Braudel attempts a major, global reconstruction of the nature of the Mediterranean economy and analyses of major dynamics in trade such as the impact of Portugal's opening of the circum-African route to the Indian ocean, the nature of the crucial trade in cereals, and the burgeoning contacts with Northwest Europe. Volume 2 delves deeper into human institutions, including the eclipse of city states by territorial states, the social and economic structures of imperial states, the conflicts between the Hapsburgs and the Ottomans, the nature of warfare, and an extensive political-diplomatic history.While encyclopedic at times, this book is generally a pleasure to read because of Braudel's skill at balancing broad analysis with telling detail. The level of erudition and knowledge of the many Mediterranean societies and events is remarkable. At times, however, the level of detail tends to overwhelm the major analysis. At times, the reader has to work a bit to extract the major structural features. The latter appear to be population growth in the 16th century, the increasing intensity of economic life and trade, the central role of the Mediterranean economy as the crucial nexus between European demand for Asian products paid for by American precious metals, the eclipse of city states by territorial states, the Hapsburg-Ottoman conflict, the gradual pacification of the Mediterranean as the Hapsburg became exhausted by conflict in Europe while the Ottomans appear to have suffered a similar problem due to conflict with Persia, and migration of the European economic center to Northwest Europe.An unavoidable drawback of this book is that it was published decades ago and one major structural feature that Braudel couldn't address is now increasingly recognized - the so-called (and misnamed) Little Ice Age that peaked in the 17th century. Coupled with 16th century population growth, this was a major driver of events towards the end of the period Braudel discusses.

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.....

A gift for my husband,I think he liked it.

Good edition of classic work