Description

Fernand Braudel first came into my life as a History Book Club selection when the first two-volume paperback edition of his work "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II" became available in English in the mid-1970s. I sat in my upstairs room (I was a teenager living with my parents) taking the text slowly and intensely, looking at every footnote, looking up EVERY reference made to places or things if I didn't know about them (and if you've ever read the books, there are plenty).

Prior to acquiring the works, I had little experience - little knowledge - of the period or events beyond something seen in a movie like El Cid, or a reading assignment about Las Balericas and the Moros - though those were long before the 16th Century. In my high school year, I read an article in Mankind Magazine about the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. It fascinated me, more so because it was nothing I'd ever encountered before.

In none of my school courses did we cover the Mediterranean world of that era. Being in the US, we always shifted to the age of European discovery and the New World after 1492. One of my brothers started talking about a course he had in college that was specifically about European history WITHOUT shifting to the New World after 1492.

So when I saw the Braudel book was a Book Club selection, it was a no-brainer. Reading Mika Waltari's historical novel "The Wanderer" (in English translation, though Waltari's writing makes me yearn to learn Finnish) added color to the period as I crept with pleasurable determination - and a sort of obsession - through the Braudel book. I knew that the second volume had what I felt - prior to starting the two-volume work - to be most interesting, consisting of the more standard political and military history I was used to. The first volume set the stage, providing background with an exhaustive study and accounting of every factor that influenced political/military history - like the environment, trade, etc etc etc. I first learned of the draining of the marshes in Italy, and the significance of that to socio-economic history and everything else related. What commodities were produced and where, what raw materials and where, the ferreting out of new routes to buyers and the edge it gave the merchant - on and on and on. And I was hooked.

Unbelievable, isn't it?

But maybe not so unbelievable....

As a teen, I was examining. Examining with the capital E. My own nature. Reality. What the mechanics were of how everything in time and space worked (theories, but not the math – I was awful at math, while eating up the theories). Braudel and the Annales School had “found the formula”, I was excitedly learning (and I was young), to isolate the principal factors influencing the world – life... the universe... and everything – that is, as it pertained to history. And I loooooved history. So I crept along for years, reading little by little, usually spinning off into some side-route (following the bunny trail, as it were) as I did supplementary reading and research that led to other related themes, etc etc, then coming back again and the cycle continued.

With 1979 and my first experience with fantasy role playing – D&D – and world-building – I was swept away with the enormity of it all. And I had a heck of a lot of knowledge about what makes a medieval/renaissance world tick. The rest... is history....

So when I found this article on the Web - Fernand Braudel and the Annales School – I wished to post it as I’ve posted so many articles on Scribed reflecting what intrigues me. Hope you find something in it that will intrigue you as well....