![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldI don't know why the PEI public library system only has the first volume of the two-volume edition of Fernand Braudel's The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Perhaps it was some sort of cost-saving measure; perhaps it was a conscious effort to tantalize Braudel's fans. Whatever the reason, before I'd left Prince Edward Island I only had the chance to read the first volume. I consider myself lucky to have found, while browsing the shelves at the Yorkville branch of Toronto's public library system, the second volume.
I'm fond of the Annales school of history. The Annalistes--Bloch, Febvre, of course Braudel--strike me as authors with a very strong attachment to narrative. I remember, when I read the first volume of The Mediterranean, how Braudel's painstakingly assembled his setting, starting with the description of the geography of the Mediterranean basin and the basin's hinterand, and continuing on through to a description the assembly, through painstaking research, of details which build up a broader picture. Braudel's specific approach examined three time scales: the longue durée, the physical structure preconditioning human affairs; temps conjonctururelle, examining the human framework, the dynamics of culture; finally, the scale of the specific historical event.
Braudel does a glorious job trisecting the history of the Mediterranean. When I'd first read The Mediterranean's first volume, I was unfamiliar with his arguments. The idea that towards the end of the 15th century, the flexible and wealth mercantile city-states which once predominated in the region were giving way to much larger territorial monarchies and empires, hadn't come to me. I was aware that many Orthodox Christians preferred Turkish rule to domination by the Latin West, but I wasn't aware of the extent of active Christian support for the Ottoman Empire. His underlying theme of a grand contest between the sprawling Spanish and Turkish empires, ending after Lepanto and only after Spain and Turkey turned towards their extra-Mediterranean hinterlands, has a certain sweep to it.
And then, there are the little things. The examination of the plight of the Moriscos in 16th century Spain and the reasons for their expulsion by the Catholic Kings, so akin to that of the Acadiens in 18th century Atlantic Canada, is stirring. Braudel takes care to describe the personalities, the available technologies, the wider important of the many pirates, whether Christian, Muslim, or convert, whether operating fleets which boldly sacked harbours or small boats kidnapping fishermen-- I find Braudel's description of the massive flow of population from the Christian world to the Muslim--not only Jewish and Muslim refugees, but ambitious Christians seeking to make their way in the sophsiticated Ottoman Empire and the prosperous Maghreb--timely and funny in the like of current concerns.
I'd proclaim The Mediterranean a work of real history but for the fact that I know that there are plenty of other modes of historical research which are just as entertaining, each in their own ways. For the reasons I've mentioned, though, and likely others I've not managed to enunciate, it has a particular heft that I'm fond of. It's a classic.
I'm fond of the Annales school of history. The Annalistes--Bloch, Febvre, of course Braudel--strike me as authors with a very strong attachment to narrative. I remember, when I read the first volume of The Mediterranean, how Braudel's painstakingly assembled his setting, starting with the description of the geography of the Mediterranean basin and the basin's hinterand, and continuing on through to a description the assembly, through painstaking research, of details which build up a broader picture. Braudel's specific approach examined three time scales: the longue durée, the physical structure preconditioning human affairs; temps conjonctururelle, examining the human framework, the dynamics of culture; finally, the scale of the specific historical event.
Braudel does a glorious job trisecting the history of the Mediterranean. When I'd first read The Mediterranean's first volume, I was unfamiliar with his arguments. The idea that towards the end of the 15th century, the flexible and wealth mercantile city-states which once predominated in the region were giving way to much larger territorial monarchies and empires, hadn't come to me. I was aware that many Orthodox Christians preferred Turkish rule to domination by the Latin West, but I wasn't aware of the extent of active Christian support for the Ottoman Empire. His underlying theme of a grand contest between the sprawling Spanish and Turkish empires, ending after Lepanto and only after Spain and Turkey turned towards their extra-Mediterranean hinterlands, has a certain sweep to it.
And then, there are the little things. The examination of the plight of the Moriscos in 16th century Spain and the reasons for their expulsion by the Catholic Kings, so akin to that of the Acadiens in 18th century Atlantic Canada, is stirring. Braudel takes care to describe the personalities, the available technologies, the wider important of the many pirates, whether Christian, Muslim, or convert, whether operating fleets which boldly sacked harbours or small boats kidnapping fishermen-- I find Braudel's description of the massive flow of population from the Christian world to the Muslim--not only Jewish and Muslim refugees, but ambitious Christians seeking to make their way in the sophsiticated Ottoman Empire and the prosperous Maghreb--timely and funny in the like of current concerns.
I'd proclaim The Mediterranean a work of real history but for the fact that I know that there are plenty of other modes of historical research which are just as entertaining, each in their own ways. For the reasons I've mentioned, though, and likely others I've not managed to enunciate, it has a particular heft that I'm fond of. It's a classic.
