92 journal of social history

These are only essays, however. We historians should not dis-

count the method because we are not fully satisfied with the results
obtained here. Even if inconclusive the essays suggest explanations
for irrational behavior among dominant groups that economic and
class analysis leaves unresolved. They challenge scholars to apply
anthropological techniques more thoroughly to past materials, but
here the training of the historian will also be indispensable.

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RICHARD HERR
University of California, Berkeley

La Mediterranee et le monde mediterraneen a I'epoque de Philippe

II. By FERDINAND BRAUDEL (2nd edition revue et augmentee;
Paris: Armand Colin, 1966. 2 vols.)

Braudel's La Mediterranee scarcely needs still another critical

review, for it has been recognized as a classic in modem his-
toriography ever since its appearance in 1949. But this second-
and final-French edition deserves more than just a brief notice,
for it is the culmination of many years of careful revision and
emendation. The original text, after all, was ready for the press
as early as 1945, and the great number of monographic studies it
inspired in the next two decades have considerably refined the ques-
tions it posed and enlarged the documentation upon which it was
based. The Italian translation of 1953 (Turin: Einaudi), more-
over, corrected numerous slips in the footnote references, and the
Spanish translation of the same year (Mexico City: Fonda de
Cultura Economica) added new material as well as numerous il-
lustrations. Consequently, almost every line has now been altered,
for reasons of style as well as content. A full barrage of graphs
and illustrations (including some spectacular, and very revealing,
shots from a satellite) have been introduced. Some chapters have
been expanded and others have been completely rewritten. What
was said about commerce with the Americas has been revised in
accordance with P. Chaunu's many volumes on Seville. What was
said about the transmission of silver into Italy now takes account
of the letters published-as well as those still to be published-by
F. Ruiz Martin. And what was said about the decline of the money
market in Genoa has been modified as a result of Brandel's own
reading of the diplomatic correspondence after 1670.
BOOK REVIEWS 93

Yet the basic message still remains the same. If history is indeed
to arrive, as the Spanish preface says it must, at "a reconstruction
of the past ... in all its breadth and complexity," it must "incorpo-
rate the whole of what its neighbors, the social sciences, have ac-
complished." It must look not just for the evenement, but for the
conjuncture and for the structure within which the evenement is cir-
cumscribed. Yet history is not economics or sociology, as Braudel

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warns once again in his new Conclusion. "The 'structuralism' of
the historian . . . is directed not toward mathematical abstraction,
... but toward the very sources of life, and toward what life con-
tains that is most concrete ... and most anonymously human." In
other words, the historian is still the child of the humanist. He looks
at the general in order better to understand-and to direct-the
chief agent in the historical process: the individual human being.
And he can write a masterpiece not because he is constrained by a
curve on a graph or even by a purely scientific problem, but simply
because he has "passionnement aime la Mediterranee."
American readers will be happy to know that, after one false
start, an English translation is now being prepared-hopefully also
in paperback (Harper and Row). But en attendant they would do
well to acquire this definitive French edition (in spite of the price),
for it will be an indispensable guide to all further work in all aspects
of the history of the early modem period for many years to come.
ERIC COCHRANE
University of Chicago