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.

The first English translation of "Ecrits sur l'histoire"--a collection of essays written over a twenty-year period following publication of Braudel's masterwork, "La, Mediterranee"--"On History" sets forth Braudel's reflections on the intellectual framework of his historical studies. Braudel calls on the historian to penetrate beneath the surface of political events to uncover and measure the forces shaping collective existence. Cycles of production, wages and prices, grids of communication and trade, fluctuations and climate, demographic trends, popular beliefs--all of these phenomena are proper subjects of the historian's investigations. It is only through study of the "longue duree," Braudel argues, that one can discern structure, the supports and obstacles, the limits and his experience cannot escape.
"The great French historian Fernand Braudel has done what only giants can: he has made Western man confront the problem of time--individual time, historical time, relative time, "real" time. . . . Braudel, more than any other historian, has wrestled with man's conception of time "over time," . . What a magnificent fight he has fought."--"Virginia Quarterly Review"

Braudel’s rich, sweeping history draws on his magical storytelling skills and lifelong love of the Mediterranean to bring its ‘long and dazzling past’ vividly to life – from prehistory to the fall of the Roman Empire. His ‘fabulous journey’ takes us back to the very first settlers as they developed basic skills, to farmers in ancient Mesopotamia and slaves in Egypt, Phoenician mariners and merchants, the religious sacrifices of Carthage and the mysteries of the Etruscans, as well as the power of Greece and Rome.

This is the story of the ancient Mediterranean told not as a series of ‘great events’, but as a continuous whole, where past and present are woven into a single fabric. Braudel shows how its history has been shaped not just by war and conquest, but by the physical realities of life, and the ebb and flow of the Mediterranean itself, over countless generations.

In this illuminating account, originally intended for French schools and now translated for the first time, one of the century's greatest historians surveyed 'the main contemporary civilizations'. Separate sections examine the Muslim world, Black Africa, the Far East, Western Europe, (from the fall of the Roman Empire to political union), 'the other Europe' to the East, the European civilizations of the New World, and 'the English-speaking universe'. Even an educational text, Braudel once suggested, can be 'a tale of adventure' - provided it is written with a 'simplicity that is clarity, the light of intelligence'. This is present throughout A History of Civilizations.

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 intricacy of detail and boldness of hypothesis in this book are indisputable, and if one is to do more than skim it, it demands and repays enormous attention...The lavish illustrations are superbly well chosen. The pictures show the endless variety of commercial dealings of which humans are capable.' Jonathan Spence, New York Times Book Review

A grand sweep of history by the late Fernand Braudel–one of the twentieth century’s most influential historians–Memory and the Mediterranean chronicles the Mediterranean’s immeasurably rich past during the foundational period from prehistory to classical antiquity, illuminating nothing less than the bedrock of our civilization and the very origins of Western culture.

Essential for historians, yet written explicitly for the general reader, this magnificent account of the ebb and flow of cultures shaped by the Mediterranean takes us from the great sea’s geologic beginnings through the ancient civilizations that flourished along its shores. Moving with ease from Mesopotamia and Egypt to the flowering of Crete and the early Aegean peoples, and culminating in the prodigious achievements of ancient Greece and Rome, Braudel conveys in absorbing detail the geography and climate of the region over the course of millennia while brilliantly explaining the larger forces that gave rise to agriculture, writing, sea travel, trade, and, ultimately, the emergence of empires. Impressive in scope and gracefully written, Memory and the Mediterranean is an endlessly enriching work of history by a legend in the field.