Here we go again. Looking better than a history book's got a right to. And I enjoyed Volume I immensely, for sure. It weighed in at 623 pages, and Volume II is only slightly longer at 670 pages. So why do I feel a little hesitation in my soul as I go to open to page 1? Well...it's a book about economics, isn't it? Not exactly my favorite subject...and I wouldn't earn a dollar on that category in Jeopardy!, I'm sure.
On the other hand, this Fernand Braudel is good. So it will be okay, right? Of course it will. Deep breath. And awa-a-a-y we go.
Day 43* (DDRD 796): January 6, 2020
Read to page 30 today, but a bit of that was Table of Contents, List of Illustrations, so not really 30 pages pages. Some most excellent stuff right off the bat, though.
And (1) isn't that a tasty dish to sit before? and (2) I wasn't expecting Jean-Paul Sartre. (Then again, nobody expects The Jean-Paul Sartre.)
As for this--
--if it doesn't hit you right off, Google those two words. Oh, never mind, I'll save you the trouble:
I can't tell you how pleased I am that Fernand Braudel couldn't resist a subtle Shade-speare allusion here.
This one is a big of a gulp, but well worth it, I think:
The center of this...the appellation "social parasitism," which is applied to the High Muckety Mucks...seems quite startling to me. Not like it's a big secret that the HMMs are social parasites, but still...
Also:
"In the present volume then, we are at an earlier stage, in which time is not respected in its chronological continuity, but used as a means of observation." Cutting to the chase, we get "time is a means of observation," which I find to be quite a profound statement...which may, essentially, reveal the nature of God and stipulate the purpose of life. That's a lot.
Last but not least, I liked this bit, which is the last line of the Foreword:
"I consoled myself with a remark by the English historian Frederick W Maitland (1887) that 'Simplicity is the outcome of technical subtlety; it is the goal, not starting point'. With luck, we may achieve it in the end."
I'm still feeling a bit wary of this Economics matter, but today was quite a good reading day, so maybe it will be okay.
* Day 1 of Volume II, but I count the whole work.
Day 44 (DDRD 797): January 7, 2020
Read to page 50 today, so a real 20 pages this time out. Thought about stopping at 10, but started getting interested in the discussion of how market towns became established in England. There were a whole hell of a lot of them, for sure. 800-ish, each serving 6,000 to 7,000 people, and drawing most of its wares from the immediate (10 - 20 mile radius) area. Also how the markets began to specialize. Allathat. So, yeah. It was interesting.
Day 45 (DDRD 798): January 8, 2020
Read to page 71 today. Some pretty interesting information about the evolution of shops...including things like initially merchants weren't allowed to sell out of the place where they performed their work, so, for instance, the butcher would have to take his meat to the market to sell it. Apparently this was because it was easier to exercise control over the market, whereas a private shop was hard to supervise.
Here's a detail from a painting by Jacobus Vrel which caught my eye.
...but that figure in the upper window really struck me. She looks so forlorn, so hopeless...just watching life go by. I know the feeling.
I've never heard of Jacobus Vrel before, but he seems like a very interesting painter. Check out this work:
I mean...SERiously. I am going to poke around and see what else I can find out about this fellow.
In other news...
...this is now a thing that I own, and I am really happy with it. The Folio Society does superb work, and I wanted this from the moment I saw it, but I held out until I found a super good deal, so that's even better. ($40.28...and we're probably talking about at least $300 worth of book here. So I pretty much made money on this deal, right?) And it's a beautiful set of books, for sure. I may have to stick to my twenty pages a day on Civilization and Capitalism just so that I can get to The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World sooner.
Day 46 (DDRD 799): January 9, 2020
Thought for the day: After a discussion of how small merchants often went bankrupt during this time, Braudel says, "Happiness, whether in business or private life, leaves little trace in history."
p. 75
🔥☲🔥☲🔥☲🔥☲ 🚒☁☁☁☁☁☁
And them I read to page 90.
Typo on page 91:
The Orchid Thief / Adaptation on page 101:
A really scary thought with implications that go to this evening's news on page 107:
"...might it be that Bonaparte deliberately kept back the news of Marengo so that someone could make a sensational killing on the Paris Bourse?"
And amongst the many references to Daniel Defoe, this one struck me as particularly interesting:
The villainy of stock-jobbers detected, and the causes of the late run upon the bank and bankers discovered and considered
Which can be found at https://archive.org/details/villainyofstockj00defo/page/n15 if you're in the mood.
Read to page 110, btw.
Day 48 (DDRD 801): January 11, 2020
Read to page 131. Big Fucking Deal, right? sigh
Day 49 (DDRD 802): January 12, 2020
Read to page 150. In related news, I picked up Mario Praz's The House of Life from the library (after reading about it in Braudel's book), and I took it to church with me this morning for the 80 minutes of downtime I have before the service starts. (Jacqueline, choir.) Read two things which I thought were worth remembering:
"... and this obliteration has been slow and imperceptible, like the passage of days in a human being, who, if you watch him from one day to another, looks the same and yet is not the same, since some Insidious portent of age and decline creeps in at every moment, until one day we are forced to confess that we are very far away from the horizon that seemed to be inalienably our own." page 20
"... while I was capable of thinking in the languages I had learnt when young, never, never did a Russian phrase flash into my mind to clothe a thought with words." page 25
Day 50 (DDRD 803): January 13, 2020
Here's a line which really rings in the ears of this divorced (and Officially Finished With Women) man's ears:
There have been numerous mentions of
in Volume 2. I know almost nothing about Aleppo, I'm sorry to say. In fact, I only know two things: (1) the Syrians and the Russians really fucked it up in 2016 and (2) 2016 Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson became slightly famous when an interviewer asked his opinion about Aleppo and he replied, "What is Aleppo?" But apparently it's ancient (founded 5000 B.C.) and that at its peak (before Syria and Russia happened) it was the largest city in Syria with 4.6 million people. (Today it weighs in at about 1/4th of that.)
And now a word about saffron:
And now a few words about Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (courtesy of Wikipedia): "...his travels, undertaken for pleasure rather than profit, may have inspired Around the World in Eighty Days." Furthermore, "This five-year trip would lead to his best known six-volume book, Giro Del Mondo (1699)."* I spent more than a couple of minutes looking for that book online, but was unable to find an available English translation. WTF, I thought this was the 21st century, man.
Read to page 170, btw.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Francesco_Gemelli_Careri
Day 51 (DDRD 804): January 14, 2020
Say, say, say that you know how to use an apostrophe.
Other than that...well, it was a shitty day, and I didn't get back to my Daily Devotional Reading until pretty late, but I did make it page 190, so there's that.
Day 52 (DDRD 805): ♚January 15, 2020♚
The real Martin Luther King, Jr., day. I am not a fan of moving celebration days around to create three day weekends. It seems disrespectful to me, y'know?
Anyway.
I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep, and I had The Wheels of Commerce right next to me since I'd finished yesterday's reading in bed, so I picked it up and started in on the next chunk. At one point the book made a kind of ominous sound...sounded like glue binding giving way...so here's hoping this book will hold together for another 20 days.
Moved from sugar into money. And it's all pretty interesting, but not nearly so much as Volume 1, I'm sorry to say. Here's hoping that it'll pick up for me.
Did spot this rather curious typo:
I did get interested in the brief discussion of the plight of miners, especially
and
And of course
I can't help thinking about Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier.
I can't help thinking about Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier.
I can't help thinking about Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier.
(And David Bowie, obviously. Well...probably only obviously to very dedicated Bowie fans, come to think of it. But y'know.)
Ahem. And thinking about O's TRtWP made me want to read it again. That was one kick ass book, for sure. But I am reading so many books right now...I think I'm going to have to hold off on starting another one for the nonce. But hey, Fernand...thanks for inciting the memory. Ad great as Animal Farm and 1984 are, I can't help but think that The Road to Wigan Pier is, in many ways, a better and more important book. Remember the scene where the miner hands Orwell a piece of bread and before he takes a bit he sees that there is black dust from the miner's hand on the edge of the bread? Man, that book really had some teeth. And it knew how to use them.
Later...
On The Road With Fernand Braudel!
Read to page 210.
P.S. Check out this footnote:
It just made me really appreciate the amount of work that goes into a book like this, y'know? Not only do you read lots of published stuff, but you go digging through the archives for stuff that has never even been published. Sheesh.
Day 53 (DDRD 806): January 16, 2020
Another shitty day. I did finish my 20 (to page 230), but not until almost 11 pm. Ended with the end of Chapter 2, and this chilling line:
This book was first published in 1983, but this bit sure reads like today's headline, doesn't it?
Day 54 (DDRD 807): January 17, 2020
Read the first ten pages today OTR...with an appropriate chapter title:
...and finished those ten pages 28 minutes later. (Had a phone call in there somewhere, too.)
The most interesting bit (so far) today was this:
On pages 236-237, Braudel quotes the comte de Custine: "Will this assembly, which has destroyed all kinds of Aristocracy, flinch before the aristocracy of capitalists, those cosmopolitans whose only fatherland is the one in which they can pile up their riches?"
It pretty much explains every Republican in Congress, doesn't it? And probably the Democrats as well, but right now it's the GOP's turn to act like fucking idiots.
Okay. Got ten more pages to read, and the hour is getting late.
P.S. Finished it in bed before sleepy time.
Day 55 (DDRD 808): January 18, 2020
Well...woke up early (4:30-ish) and knocked out ten pages, so there's that. And then:
A chilling thought:
A commentary on how The Law becomes a means of extorting money from the poor:
And a line that actually made me cry:
Because that's the way it is, isn't it? the people in power see the people "beneath" them as animals in need of harsh training. And...well, fuck. It's the history of the world, isn't it?
Fuck.
I also felt the need to tweet a bit of today's reading:
And that's that, isn't it? (Read to page 270.)
Day 56 (DDRD 809): January 19, 2020
And here I thought "maroon" was just a Bugs Bunny word:
Live and learn.
Took it on the road for a bit.
Met The Trons.
And stopped at page 290.
Day 57 (DDRD 810): January 20, 2020
Hey, it's 1/20/2020. Makes me wish that there were 20 months in a year, y'know?
Anyway...
It's another shitty day with a sick child, a Kroger Pharmacy gone amok (currently trying to charge me $5882.97 for a prescription which does not contain gold or uranium), and feeling pretty wobbly myself...but ahmo still do my Braudel reading, by Golly.
First entertaining STOP on today's reading journey involved a reference to a book published in 1763 entitled L'art De S'enrichir Promptement Par L'agriculture, which translates to How To Get Rich Quick in Farming. I have a farmer friend Out There who would probably find that at least a little bit funny. But not Ha Ha Funny.
...would make a great opening scene for a story or a novel. Or a play. Possibly a musical. Poem. Opera. But I probably won't write it, so I'll give it to you.
Finished the day on the top of page 312.
Day 58 (DDRD 811): January 21, 2020
When I saw this
on the bottom of page 314, my first thought was that it was a typo: it was obviously meant to be "coils of a net," not "toils," right? But being the intrepid independent scholar that I am, I went on the hunt. And it took only a moment to discover that the phrase "toils of a net" had appeared in other works. So I looked further, and found this
Well, I'll be damned. You live and you learn, right? Although I'm still a little confused, as I'm wondering why, if toils means nets or traps, you would use it in the phrase, "toils of a net." Isn't that redundant? "I was caught in the net of a net." But as I said previously, it's not without precedent, so I'm obviously still missing something.
A bit later on (page 322) Braudel was getting into some detail on mining, and this really caught my eye:
5 centimeters is less than 2 inches. Can you imagine hitting a rock wall for eight hours and only making a two inch dent in it? It's stunning. Though come to think of it, I have written about a dozen novels, so I guess I DO know what that's like.
Anyway...I got into the mining stuff. I hope there's some more of that. And I did a full twenty page read again, stopping on page 332.
Less than two weeks to go if I maintain this pace! Very exciting.
Day 59 (DDRD 812): January 22, 2020
Well...another shitty day. Read to page 352, though.
Day 60 (DDRD 813): January 23, 2020
Read to page 370.
Day 61 (DDRD 814): January 24, 2020
Read to page 392.
Day 62 (DDRD 815): January 25, 2020
A week of feeling shitty finally caught up to me: my first 10 page day (to page 401). And not even enough energy to say anything about it. Maybe mañana.
Day 63: (DDRD 816): January 26, 2020
So here's a thing:
"There...are stupid men and I dare even say imbeciles who find themselves good places and are able to die rich without one having any reason to suspect that they have contributed to this by their labour or the slightest industry; someone simply took them to the source of a river, or perhaps mere chance put them in its way; they were asked 'Do you want water? Take it.' And they took it."
That was on page 402. I had to take a little side journey to check out the guy who said this--Jean de La Bruyère--and that was a nice little canter. I hope to spend some more time with him...coming soon (maybe) to a blog post near this one.
And then a few pages later on page 410, there was this:
"Louis Greffulhe wrote to his brother on 30 August, 1777: 'It is not back but forward that one must look in trade, and if people in this profession spent their time analyzing the past, not one of them could say he had not had a hundred chances to make his fortune - or to ruin himself. If I were personally to make a list of all the good deals I have let slip, it would be enough to make a man hang himself.'"
Well...you can apply that one to things other than business dealings, eh?
So I guess you could say that today was a much better reading day than the past few. Might could even read another ten pages, but we'll see. (The hour is getting late.)
And...yes, read to page 420. The last bits were about the creation and rise of monopolies, and Braudel talked about how a key component to creating a monopoly was having large warehouses so that goods could be kept in them...hoarded...to manipulate the price. And another key part was buying directly from the manufacturers. Well...can you say Amazon? I have certainly bought my fair share of stuff from Jeff Bezos's warehouse, but reading this and thinking about all of the damage...all of the actual suffering...that monopolies have caused made me queasy.
Any thoughts?
Day 64: (DDRD 817): January 27, 2020
Well, this kind of sums it all up:
"Money was indeed a miraculous agent of exchange, but it was also a confidence trick serving the privileged." p. 426
Also note a (slightly) previous reference to "the common people who spend small sums and live by daily labor." You definitely get the picture: the lives of the common people are at the mercy of those in power. While the common folks struggle to survive from one day to the next, they are exploited by those who have the means of production. And the money, of course.
So...it seems to me that the proper function of a democracy is to insure that the poor are not exploited by the rich.
How is that working for you?
And did you read that bit from de Tocqueville that I posted yesterday?
Furthermore...from page 433, "The capitalist class has always been able to direct and control change in such a way as to preserve its hegemony." Stephan Marglin, in Le Nouvel Observateur, 9 June 1975.
Read to page 440.
Day 65: (DDRD 818): January 28, 2020
Did a lot of the reading whilst sitting in the car in the Barnes and Noble parking lot. (Not enough time to go home between dropping off daughter and picking up son for basketball practice, so.... It works out okay.)
Day 66: (DDRD 819): January 29, 2020
Here's a line (attributed only to "an Italian text," unfortunately, and Googling provided no clue as to what that text might be) which I thought was particularly powerful:
"One section of humanity...is ill-treated to death so that the other can stuff itself to bursting-point."
Jet is still a big Fernand Braudel fan, by the way:
One interesting side note from today's twenty pages: a picture of Burghley House (yes, THAT Burghley!) which makes Downton Abbey look like a piker:
(And there's an even nicer and colorer picture on Wikipedia...@ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burghley_House#/media/File:Front_of_Burghley_House_2009.jpg if you'd care for a look.)
Read to page 481 today. So...if I maintain an even strength, that puts me six days out from finishing Volume II.
Day 67: (DDRD 820): January 30, 2020
Braudel quotes Oudard Coquailt: "this is the present state of the world, and one should not expect to find virtue among the nobility."
p. 485
Which kind of sums it all up, doesn't it? A variation on Freud's "the laws are made by and for the ruling members and find little room for the rights of those in subjection."
There was a little anecdote about a place called
which was a little town built by a rich dude. Apparently it went belly up and was ghosted for awhile, but when I looked it up online to see if there were some cool pictures, it said it had a population of 4,260, so I guess they got over it. Pretty little Italian town, btw.
And then there's this:
"The mass of society beneath this level* was enclosed in the net of the established order. If the mass is became too restive, the match was reinforced or tightened, or new ways of stretching at were devised. The state was there to preserve any quality, the Cornerstone of the social order."
* This level = the highest aristocracy
Yep.
Have I mentioned that I will proofread for cheap? Maybe even just for a copy of the book. 🤙
And I liked this bit from page 502...which is the last page I read today.
Day 68: (DDRD 821): January 31, 2020
Here's an interesting thing: another reference to Oudard Coquault. Looking back, I see that I'd previously misspelled his name, which is probably why I had zero hits when I Googled him. (Google is more forgiving with people who are famouser.)
And here's a good question to ask ourselves:
Especially in light of the fact that
And then came this bit of scathing brilliance:
"When Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in April 1974 that the hierarchy ought to be dismantled, that no man should have to be dependent on another man, he seems to me to have put his finger on the crucial point. But is this possible? To say society seems invariably to mean saying hierarchy. All the distinctions which Marx referred to but did not invent - slavery, serfdom, the workers condition - suggest chains of some kind: it does not always matter greatly that the chains differ in character. If one form of slavery is abolished, another springs up. Yesterday's colonies have all gained their independence, or so we are told in every political speech; but the rattling of chains in the Third World is deafening. Those who live in comfort always seem to accept this with a light heart or any rate with equanimity. 'If the poor had no children,' writes the straight-faced Abbe' Claude Fleury in 1688, 'where should we find the workers, soldiers and servants for the rich?' 'The use of slaves in our colonies,' writes Melon, 'teaches us that slavery is contrary neither to Religion nor Morality.'"
p. 514
How's that for a Big 🔥?
Also found this interesting:
Obviously you can make a case for this merely being a method of control and repression, but perhaps there are other ways of looking at it as well...such as even the State had to realize that the spiritual life was so important to the people that to ignore it (or, worse, oppose it) would be disastrous. And if there's any truth in that, then I have to at least wonder if 50 Million Elvis Fans Can Be Wrong.
Braudel also made a passing reference to a movie--Place de la République (1974), written, directed and produced by Louis Malle--which sounds interesting. And lucky for me to live in a city with a library big and bad enough to have a copy, so I'll get back to you on that in a few.
Read to page 520. Eighty pages to go...four days (maybe).
Day 69: (DDRD 822): February 1, 2020
To page 540.
Day 70: (DDRD 823): February 2, 2020
From page 544:
Yeah, you've got to keep a close watch on those previous metals, don'tcha? (In case it isn't obvious, this was supposed to read precious metals. Yet another reason why Harper and Row should be hiring me to proofread their books. (And maybe they should pay me in precious metals, eh?)
From page 547: "The laws of the Indies are spiders' webs, went the saying in Spanish America: they catch the little offenders, but not the big ones."
Mmm-hmm. The song remains the same.
And here's a really big fucking deal thing from pages 556-557: After discussing the many borrowings from other cultures by the West, especially Islamic culture, Braudel concludes, "And it logically culminates in denying the Roman Empire its role as the cradle of progress. For the much-vaunted Empire - center of the world and of our own history, extending over all the shores of the Mediterranean and here and there penetrating the landmasses - was only one part of an ancient world economy much greater than itself, which would outlast it by centuries."
Think about that shit, Trump supporters.
And speaking of them, here's another bit--another Big Fucking Deal kind of bit:
"In May 1288, the Mamluke government was trying to attract to Syria and Egypt merchants from Sind, India, China and the Yemen. It is hard to imagine in the West anything like the government decree issued on this occasion:
We extend this invitation to illustrious personages, great merchants desirous of profits, or small retailers . . . Whoever arrives in our country will be able to remain or come and go as he pleases . . . it is truly a garden of Paradise for those who reside there . . . A divine blessing is assured for the journey of any man who inspires charity by borrowing or who accomplishes a good deed by lending."
I mean...that makes
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me...."
look like a piker!
Those were the days, my friend.
And now, this: In case there was any doubt about Braudel's attitude towards religion, he makes this comment: "From the very beginning, religion (the essence of civilization) and the economy confronted each other. (559) Wow, that's pretty intense, eh?
Read to page 561. Forty pages to go!
ADDENDUM: And then I thought, maybe I'll read a little bit more today. So I did. Read to page 572. Also, for some reason, read pages 600 to 601 ("By Way of a Conclusion"), which means that I only have 28 pages to go. And some of them is pictures. So I might could finish tomorrow!
Day 71: (DDRD 824): February 3, 2020
It wasn't the best day, but I ended up taking The Wheels of Commerce to bed with me, and I finished it up before I conked out for the night. Ahhhh.
And now, on to Volume 3!
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