Fernand Braudel – författare

Written from a consciously anti-enthnocentric approach, this fascinating work is a survey of the civilizations of the modern world in terms of the broad sweep and continuities of history, rather than the "event-based" technique of most other texts.

A translation of Fernand Braudel's "Ecrits sur l'histoire", published in 1969. The main themes of the work are: the importance of a "rapprochement" between history and the social sciences; the inseparability of study of past and present; the dubious value of the narrative techniques; and the liberating effect of approaching the human past with eyes firmly fixed upon the "longue duree".

By examining in detail the material life of pre-industrial peoples around the world, Fernand Braudel significantly changed the way historians view their subject. Volume I describes food and drink, dress and housing, demography and family structure, energy and technology, money and credit, and the growth of towns.

The subject of "The Wheels of Commerce" is the development of mechanisms of exchange - shops, markets, trade networks, and banking - in the pre-industrial stages of capitalism.

Volume III investigates what Braudel terms "world-economies" - the economic dominance of a particular city at different periods of history, from Venice to Amsterdam, London, New York.

The city-states of fifteenth-century Italy exerted unprecedented cultural influence on Europe and the Mediterranean and acted as a bulwark against the imperial and bellicose designs of the empires that surrounded them. Acclaimed French historian, Fernand Braudel, brings to life the two extraordinary centuries that span the Renaissance, Mannerism, and Baroque and grippingly portrays the complex interaction between art, science, politics and commerce during Italy’s extraordinary cultural flowering.Considered one of the great modern historians, Fernand Braudel was a leader of the Annales School. His many books include The Mediterranean, and A History of Civilizations.