The Perspective of the World: Civilization and Capitalism 15Th-18th Century, Vol. 3 First Edition

by Fernand Braudel (Author), Siân Reynold (Translator)

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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Originally published in the early 1980s, Civilization traces the social and economic history of the world from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, although his primary focus is Europe. Braudel skims over politics, wars, etc., in favor of examining life at the grass roots: food, drink, clothing, housing, town markets, money, credit, technology, the growth of towns and cities, and more. The history is fascinating and made even more interesting by period prints and drawings.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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"This book is alive, not only with the author's lightly worn learning and urbane style but with his human sympathies . . . and his acute awareness of contemporary analogies."--"Economist

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of California Press; First edition (December 23, 1992)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 699 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0520081161
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0520081161
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.12 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.5 x 8.88 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #769,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,210 in European History (Books)
- #1,747 in Sociology (Books)
- #1,805 in History of Civilization & Culture

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Amazon Customer

Changes your perspective on history

Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2005

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I am a huge reader of history, and this is one of my favorites of all time. While full of interesting facts and stories, it is set apart from most books by the depth of the analysis it provides. It walks the line between history and social science, hinting at a theory of civilization and capitalism based on case studies from around the world. Though professional it is not dry (though I am infamous for enjoying a good dry book). My only criticism of it is the parts where it ventures into the cyclic theory of history. This is a European (or French) historiographic technique of trying to edition long recurring cycles. Frankly I find the concept forced (even more frankly, it's bunk!) and it always annoys me when I come across it...but it is part of the historical tradition Braudel was involved in, so it must simply be tolerated as a blemish on an otherwise stunning achievement.

9 people found this helpful

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Roger Merritt

but the illustrations are so gorgeous it's like wandering through a museum

Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2014

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Each of the three volumes is a treasure. Sometimes the documentation presented can be a little overwhelming, but the illustrations are so gorgeous it's like wandering through a museum. He really manages to bring the period to life.

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Edward Chick

The Euro in the Middle Ages

Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2012

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Braudel interprets economic circumstance as premise and thesis for the historical development of Europe and subsequent motivation for expansion and conquest over surrounding continents. Were this reading a weather forecast it would read dry to luke warm. Otherwise, mediocre narrative, satutarted with mathematical rationale leave a tart taste in your mind that repeats on your sensibilities in asking: Did this historical narrative have any bearing on contemporary history?

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Lee Tae Hee

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2016

good

from market mechanisms to policy and history

Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2002

Where the first two volumes of this trilogy covered living standards and the evolution of market mechanisms and capital accumulation, this one completes the picture with detailed historical examinations of the policies of the most successful cities and nations in the development of capitalism.

In fascinating detail, Braudel starts with the trade system of Venice, which allowed that tiny and resourceless city-state to dominate the world trade economy for centuries, and which culminated in the golden age of Amsterdam. THese cities, he argues persuasively, pushed commercial and financial capitalism to new heights, that is, with a combination of banking and control of trade routes, they created monopolies that benefitted themselves largely at the expense of their trading partners. They did so with a combination of readily mobilisable financial capital, clever warehousing (particularly in Amsterdam, which was like a perpetual market fair) that allowed them to control supplies and hence sell items at the right time for the higest price, domination of shipbuilding technologies as well as naval prowess (i.e. state piracy), and the control of the origin of their supplies, as in the Dutch East Indies for the spice trade. Braudel argues that it was a conscious policy. He also deliniates how Spain and then Portugal were beaten.

He then moves on to the birth of industrial capitalism in England in the late 18th C, which the loss of the American colonies - and hence ended its military obligations there while trade increased - facilitated. The great difference here, which he argues is a creative extension of the other long-existing forms of capitalism rather than its true beginning as many claim - was that investment was made in new technologies. It is similar to what the U.S. and Japan have done as major economic powers with different industrial systems: the U.S. had the largest national market, while Japan created cartels that could control prices (going after market share rather than immediate profit).
Braudel also examines basic questions of how an economy is successfully ?revolutionised.? What makes inventions take off in one society and not another? Is it one factor, or many acting together in concert? In particular, he compares the cases of the newly de-colonised United States and Latin American, in which the former was able to place itself at the center of the world economy and compete while the latter were weak and hence consigned to a subordinate role by the superpower of the day, Great Britain. He also examines the case of France, which was never able to enter the first rank of commercial and industrial nations prior to the 20C because, he argues, Paris (an administrative and not a trade capital) dominated the country and never learned to respect entrepreneurs.

These arguments are truly fascinating and presented with the perfect amount of detail: not too much as is often the case with Simon Schama, and not so little that only specialists can understand it. While it is sometimes difficult to follow his thread of logic, there is so much to learn from this book that I will consult it for the rest of my professional life. As a measure of its interest, I kept a marker in the footnotes, where I loved to look for references on virtually every page.

Nonetheless, as a 2000-page book that I loved, I am glad that it is done! It took me nearly two years to get through it all and I wished at times that it was more succinct. I found myself fliiping through it to see where illustrations would shorten the text. The conclusion, which attempts to offer persoective on the present, is also badly dated.

All in all, this is the most interesting and best economic history that I have ever read.

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Suckwoo Lee

The time of the world

Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2002

This is the third volume of Braudel's 'Civilization and Capitalism' The third volume is about the capitalism as world economy. This is the reason why Braudel says that capitalism is premised on market economy. But market economy is not capitalism. To grasp this point, we should pay attention to Braudel's conception of time.
Braudel sees three levels of time. Events time is the immediately observable. But the event doesn't explain itself. They have to be placed within the context of what Braudel called conjunctures, or the set of forces that prepare the ground for events. Conjectural time is medium term; the span of an economic cycle, of a certain configuration of social forces, or of a certain paradigm of scientific knowledge. At the deepest level is longue duree. It involves structures of thought (mentality) that are very slow to change: economic organization, social practices, political institutions, language, and values. These structures are all cohesive and interdependent, yet each moves at a different pace. Conjunctural changes that become consolidate and stabilized could signal a change in the longue duree. Events are conditioned and shaped by the structures of the longue duree, but events may also cumulatively challenge, undermine, and transform these structures. The explanation of history involves the interaction of all three levels of time.
Three levels of time correspond to three layers of economy. capitalism has the longue duree as its modality of time. But Braudel use the term, capitalism a bit different from Marx's definition. Braudel defines capitalism as world-economy. There have been several world-economies throughout history. Capitalism is only one of them. World-economy structures (or organizes) the space as a hierarchy of division of labor. At the top of the hierarchy lies a center. Several world-cities surround it. So world-economy is about patterning space around a central city. This is the point Braudel meets the world system theory. In fact, Wallerstein, the proponent of world system theory borrowed Braudel's idea. American world system theories centered on Wallerstein and the SUNY's Braudel Center.

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Luc REYNAERT

From the village market to the Industrial Revolution

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 31, 2020

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Human civilization can be split into 4 main sectors: politics, hierarchical societies, cultures (e.g., religion) and economics. Fernand Braudel's book is focused on the last sector, which prevailed over the other sectors (e.g., the interest problem for the Catholic Church).

In Vol I 'The Structure of Everyday Life', F. Braudel analyzes social patterns, like eating, clothing, housing, family life or urbanization (growth of towns).
In Vol. II 'The Wheels of Commerce', he analyzes trade, thereby giving a clear distinction between market economies with their transparent direct link between producers and consumers, and capitalism, which is a parasite in the market economy through oligo- and monopolies in the hands of international trading houses and banking institutions with flexible capital at their disposal.
In this Vol. III he analyzes the chronological evolution of the world-economies between the 15th and the 18th century.

Space
A world-economy has a hierarchy of zones: a centre (a dominant city), a developed middle zone and a vast periphery, with high inequalities between the zones (e.g., the international division of labour).

Time (Bruges, Venice, Antwerp, Genua, Amsterdam, England)

In the 13th century, Europe had two trading centres linked by the Champagne Fairs : Bruges in the Low Countries at the core of a northern complex stretching from England to the Baltic (the Hanseatic League), and Venice in Italy.
After the Black Death (1350), Venice became the leading economic centre with its industrial capitalism.
In the 16th century, its role was taken over by Antwerp, which was at the crossroads of German and Portuguese trading routes. It was also a centre for moneylenders (the Fuggers and the Welsers).
The Spanish State bankruptcy of 1557 provoked Antwerp's decline. Genua came at the forefront through a multinational consortium of a handful of bankers-financiers.
Amsterdam was the last empire-building city with its Baltic (grain), Spanish (precious metals) and East-Indies (spices, tea) trades. It had a monopoly of entrepôt trade, while cheap credit was widely available. Its prosperity lead to enormous flexible financial surpluses in the hands of capitalists, who created a superstructure capable to control subordinate economies.
The first empire-building capitalist nation was England, an island with a really national market and the city of London as its core. It had a stable national currency, an extremely reliable and efficient banking system and a perfect debt administration. It never defaulted on interest payments.

The Industrial Revolution in England
The I. R. was 'a massive phenomenon', a process of growth and transformation from a predominantly agricultural to a manufacturing society.
It was a combination of developments in all sectors of human civilization.
'High farming' made the agricultural sector more efficient, thereby allowing a demographic revival (no labour shortages).
The transport sector saw new technical developments in coastal shipping, new waterways (canal fever) and 'railroads' with iron wheels. There was a shift from charcoal to coal and cokes, permitting the improvement of metal quality which allowed the building of machinery (Watt's steam engine), mechanical constructions and the mechanization of weaving.
The I.R. was reinforced by a commercial revolution, an explosion of trade volumes, at home, and, more importantly, abroad.
It provoked a division of labour: the emergence of the industrialist, and, on the other side, the proletariat with large contingents of women and children.

Today
F. Braudel still sees the market economies (small firms with less than 50 workers) as the backbone of the world economy, 'although its most brilliant discoveries sooner or later fall into the hands of holders of capital'. They should be protected against the creation of oligo- and monopolies. The solution is to extend the area of the market and not to replace private by State capitalism.
As for inequality in the world, 'the present population explosion is likely to do little or nothing to encourage the more equitable distribution of surpluses.'

Although brutally blackballed by the left and the right, Fernand Braudel's masterpiece unveils in a crystal clear idiom the essential building blocks of human life in a world dominated by economic decisions at all power levels.
A must read for all those who want to understand the way of the world.

One person found this helpful

Dot

Not easy to understand

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 17, 2018

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Not easy to understand.

T. Burkard

Everything you needed to know about (Marxist) history

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 2, 2009

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Braudel's encyclopedic knowledge of human history may never again be equalled, but it's the kind of knowledge that leaves you little the wiser as to why things happened. This is, of course, the problem with determinist history: everything is explained in reference to 'historical forces', which explains nothing at all. Braudel tells us that some countries "are poor because they are poor" and that rich countries are rich because "growth breeds growth".

Another example of Braudel's limitations is his explanation as to how Britain overtook France in the 1700s as the world's leading power. It is widely known that Britain could borrow far more than France, and Braudel simply puts this down to our sophisticated financial system. In Braudel's post-Marxist eyes, France and England were both capitalist and imperialist nations, equally guilty of exploitation and oppression; hence, he ignores fine distinctions--such as the fact Parliamentary government represented the interests which loaned money to the crown, which thereby ensured that these loans were always repaid. Hence, our Consols at 3% were always oversubscribed, whereas French kings--who were notorious defaulters--were lucky to get anything at 8%.

If you are the sort of person who believes that Europeans are the root of all evil, and that other races were nice peace-loving peoples until we came along in our gunboats, you will probably like this book. Braudel makes something of an exception for the French: even though he does not overlook the sins of his countrymen, at least they are a cultured people.

This said, Braudel does understand the value of narrative history. The modern history curriculum in British schools, which expects pupils to analyse primary sources, would be much better if followed his advice on teaching history. Young children are in no position to understand original documents when even professional historians disagree on their meaning. And it has to be admitted that Braudel writes well, and what he has to say is always interesting. This is quite a feat, as Braudel is not particularly interested in great historical figures. Unfortunately, his accounts are not always accurate.

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