The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II
by Fernand Braudel
Volume 1: 406 pages
Volume 2: 607 pages
Volume 3: 517 pages
Total: 1,530 pages
Yep, I decided that I hadn't had enough of Fernand Braudel yet. Besides, this (Folio Edition) is such a pretty book...who could possibly resist it? I'm planning on a modest ten pages per day, but even if I stick with that pace for the most part, I'll definitely push on it to make sure I finish for
Daily Devotional Reading Day🎆1000🎆!
Day One (DDRD 863): March 13, 2020
And...well, I didn't get to the book proper at all today, as I read the table of contents (5 pages), the list of illustrations (3 pages), Introduction by Eugen Weber (9 pages), Preface to the First English Edition (2 pages) and Preface to the Second Edition (3 pages)...total of 22 pages...and thought that that was a good bit for the day. There was some good stuff in there, though.
For instance, in his introduction, Eugen Weber talks about reading this book for the first time, and notes that its "sea-blue cover could hardly fetter it...." Weber also talks about how this book essentially began its life as Fernand Braudel's thesis, but that lack of academic support meant that it was not published upon completion. Weber also adds such excellent tidbits as Braudel saying interesting things such as, "It's in Brazil that I became intelligent."
And in Braudel's Prefaces he talks about how when it came time to have the book translated into English, he pretty much rewrote the book because he didn't want it to fail to reflect new information, his new perspective, etc. In fact, I'm not looking back to insure that this is true, but I think he said he rewrote it again at some point...for a second edition, maybe.
What a man.
So I am officially not "in" the book yet...page xxx.
For instance, in his introduction, Eugen Weber talks about reading this book for the first time, and notes that its "sea-blue cover could hardly fetter it...." Weber also talks about how this book essentially began its life as Fernand Braudel's thesis, but that lack of academic support meant that it was not published upon completion. Weber also adds such excellent tidbits as Braudel saying interesting things such as, "It's in Brazil that I became intelligent."
And in Braudel's Prefaces he talks about how when it came time to have the book translated into English, he pretty much rewrote the book because he didn't want it to fail to reflect new information, his new perspective, etc. In fact, I'm not looking back to insure that this is true, but I think he said he rewrote it again at some point...for a second edition, maybe.
What a man.
So I am officially not "in" the book yet...page xxx.
Day Two (DDRD 864): March 14, 2020
And today...Preface to the First Edition (8 pages) Introduction (2 pages)...so tomorrow begins The Book Proper. Good Introduction, though. Fernand Braudel seems like a really cool guy: smart and self-effacing, humble and funny.
Fernand referred several times to Lucien Febvre, who was his teacher (perhaps literally, I don't recall, but certainly in the sense of an encouraging mentor)...and dedicated The Mediterranean etc. to him, so I thought I'd have a look at his work. Several items looked interesting, but I was particularly drawn to this title: The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800. Alas, it's not to be had at the public library, but (1) it is available at U of L, (2) it is available at Bellarmine University, and (3) Better World Books has a copy for a mere $17.48...with free shipping...and a 20% off St. Patrick's Day Sale. Shit, I might as well face it: try to resist temptation however I might, I am still going to buy a lot more books before I die. ANYway...reading about The Coming of the Book also led me to another tome on the same topic which looks tempting: The Book in the Renaissance by Andrew Pettegree. Which can be had at LFPL...but is also available from Better World Books for $15.48 and etcetera.
Will it go 'round in circles? Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky-eye?
And today...Preface to the First Edition (8 pages) Introduction (2 pages)...so tomorrow begins The Book Proper. Good Introduction, though. Fernand Braudel seems like a really cool guy: smart and self-effacing, humble and funny.
Fernand referred several times to Lucien Febvre, who was his teacher (perhaps literally, I don't recall, but certainly in the sense of an encouraging mentor)...and dedicated The Mediterranean etc. to him, so I thought I'd have a look at his work. Several items looked interesting, but I was particularly drawn to this title: The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800. Alas, it's not to be had at the public library, but (1) it is available at U of L, (2) it is available at Bellarmine University, and (3) Better World Books has a copy for a mere $17.48...with free shipping...and a 20% off St. Patrick's Day Sale. Shit, I might as well face it: try to resist temptation however I might, I am still going to buy a lot more books before I die. ANYway...reading about The Coming of the Book also led me to another tome on the same topic which looks tempting: The Book in the Renaissance by Andrew Pettegree. Which can be had at LFPL...but is also available from Better World Books for $15.48 and etcetera.
Will it go 'round in circles? Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky-eye?
Day Three (DDRD 865): March 15, 2020
Hey, look who showed up in one of today's footnotes:
Yep, my old friend José Ortega y Gasset ⬇️
Man, I read "On Studying" at least a dozen times with my Great Books kids...and it always blew everybody away. A necessary corrective to the bullshit caked into the grout lines of the public education system, for .
Only read to page 14 (10 pages) today. I'd planned to do more, but it was a hard day. (Socially isolating with two autistic adults is challenging.)
Day Four (DDRD 866): March 16, 2020
I woke up this morning
At four ayem
The cat was meow-in'
And then she meow-ed again.
I couldn't get out of bed
'Cause it'd wake up the kids
So I picked up The Mediterranean
And here's what I did:
Page 16: "toils" again! After I first noticed this word in Civilization and Capitalism, 16th - 18th Century...I think it was in Volume 3: The Perspective of the World, though it might have been earlier than that...when I thought it was a typo for "coils." (I believe the phrase was "toils of rope," though I wouldn't bet the family farm on that. And then after I checked online and found out that it was, indeed, a word, I noticed it several more times. And lookee, here it comes again. Fernand Braudel must have some deep, subconscious connection to knotted rope.
On page 17, Braudel quotes Baron de Tott: "The steepest places have been at all times the asylum of liberty...." Which immediately made me think of 🏔Vermont🏔.
On page 19 there was a reference to Spoleto; was that the locale for the Tamás István novel? My memory was a little fuzzy, so I went to have a look. Turns out it was close but no cigar. The novel was The Students of Spalato (a superb novel, by the way, and you can find a copy for cheap on Amazon). Undeterred, I looked to Google Maps --just in case, you know?--and found out that (1) Spalato was no longer Spalato, it was now Split, and (2) it wasn't all that far away from Spoleto:
There was also a reference to tree bread being made in the mountains (this first chapter is all about mountains, in case you didn't notice the pattern). Made me want to bake a loaf, but I looked it up and it looks like it would cost about a hundred dollars to make it.
And last (for this early morning reading session, anyway...I'd like to put down a few more pages later today if possible), on pages 23 - 24 there was this bit: "In this way a social and cultural barrier is raised to replace the imperfect geographical barrier which is always being broken in a variety of ways." Which made me think of the contempt--sometimes couched in disguise as humor--expressed for 'Flatlanders' by some native Vermonters I have briefly met. I think I'm going to write a little bit about this. (We'll see how that works out, right? Details as they happen.)
And? Well, I got to page 27. So not bad...but I really wanted to hit page 30, just for the sake of evening things up. 40 tomorrow? We'll see.
Day Five (DDRD 867): March 17, 2020
Page 32 "...ease of communication is one of the first conditions of effective government."
That seems particularly pertinent to today's situation as Trump and the Republicans and their supporters attempt to bullshit their way through the Cover-19 Pandemic.
Sigh.
But I did make it to page 40 today, so there's that.
Day Six (DDRD 868): March 18, 2020
A ten page day. Which I timed, and was surprised to find that it took me a good 40 minutes. A few of them can be attributed to playing with the cat, fixing and fetching tea, and sipping from the aforementioned...but four minutes per page seems about right. For one thing, these are pretty text rich pages. For another, there aren't any interrupting illustrations--as there were in Civilization and Capitalism...wherein every ten pages =ed seven or eight pages. Also, there are a lot of notes to this text...and when you flip back to the notes, they're not just bibliographic information, they are little David Foster Wallacian asides. So in this book, I think ten pages is equal to eleven or twelve. Which is not a bad thing, it just means that ten pages per day is probably going to be the most I'll be going for...until it comes close to 1,000 day time, because I really do want to finish all three volumes of this work on that day. (But not before!)
Anyway...
Lots more information about The Plains, especially draining them so that they can be cultivated. Some of which was kind of interesting. Particularly...
From page 41, Fernand Braudel, who really DOES know better, commits a Crime Against Prefixes when he wonders...
Decimated. Deci is ten. Decimated means 1/10th destroyed. That's not a tragedy, it's a tithe. Hell, it's a B...maybe a B+ if you're on that lower standards grading scale. Fernand...come on, now.
The best part of today's reading, though, was this bit:
In his discussion of cultivating the flooded fields of the plains in Italy, Braudel says "Economic progress was assured - but at the price of social misery." (49) Maybe it's just the Commie in me, but I think that is an apt summation of damned near every economic system in the history of human beings on planet Earth.
He goes on to explain that the social misery is primarily the result of what amounts to slave labor...which is the only way to get this kind of work done--kind of like our own migrant workers.
A few pages later, Braudel asks, "Was the plain the rich man's fief to do with as he liked?" (51) Well, we all know that that's a rhetorical question, don't we?
Got to go watch some opera now. (Il Trovatore...with 🔥Anna Netrebko🔥!)
Day Seven (DDRD 869): March 19, 2020
Read to page 60. We're still in the plains...with malaria and rich people exploiting the living hell out of poor people. With a little Andalusia thrown in for good measure. And hey, get this: did you know that that Seville once had exclusive "ownership" of America? Yup. Check this out:
"America was given to Seville in 1503 for almost two centuries...as a legal monopoly."
Umm...what?
Also, check this out:
It's a detail from the painting, The Journey of the Magi (circa 1460) painted by Benozzo Gozzoli. Check out the size of that freakin' rabbit!
Day Eight (DDRD 870): March 20, 2020
Read to page 70. The biggest highlight...one of my all time favorite Braudel moments...maybe even my favoritest of all...came early today:
I mean, seriously...how can it get any better than Cheese Mass?
Also, when I read something like this:
I immediately want to find out more about the fellow. In this case, though, the only references to "Francesco Caldagno" were (1) to this book or (2) in Italian. So I guess that's that for Francesco.
Day Nine (DDRD 871): March 21, 2020
Read to page 80.
Jet i decided to have a rest on top of my book today, so I took advantage of the situation and Tweeted her:
Which I thought was pretty darned cute, but it didn't get a whole hell of a lot of hits (60 impressions, 1 engagement), so I had another go at it a bit later--with some input from a story I'd seen about Paulina Porizkova--
--which I thought was even darneder cuter, and it did a little better --259 impressions, 12 engagements. So there's that.
Also, two out-takes:
And one slightly tweaked version of the second Tweet image...'cause I liked the way the light washed out the window panes, and wanted to take it to the limit. (But just one more time.)
Day Ten (DDRD 872): March 22, 2020
Read to page 90.
Day Eleven (DDRD 873): March 23, 2020
Read to page 100. Have to confess that I never thought about the Mediterranean Sea as anything other than One Thing before...but Braudel is certainly showing me that that is like thinking of the Earth as having One Ocean. There are all kinds of nooks and crannies in that Mediterranean thing.
In fact, check this out: "In Greek literature (which is where the phrase entered Western literature), the Seven Seas were the Aegean, Adriatic, Mediterranean, Black, Red, and Caspian seas, with the Persian Gulf thrown in as a 'sea.'"
(Courtesy of The National Ocean Service @ https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sevenseas.html)
You learn something new every day, huh?
Day Twelve (DDRD 874): March 24, 2020
It's a two bookmark kind of book. Those end notes.
Read to page 110.
Day Thirteen (DDRD 875): March 25, 2020
Read to page 120. Found a few things I'd like to remember along the way.
"History sooner or later takes back her gifts." I thought that was
a particularly pertinent line via-a-vis our current situation. A week ago the American economy was booming, and we seemed to be on top of the world. Today our economy is nose first into the dirt, we're all scared and anxious, and we are hearing that there's a possibility that two million or more people could die from the Covid-19 Pandemic. Best not to think about that too much, I think.
So on a lighter note...after making reference to stories that were told about prison escapes from Algiers, Braudel says, "Some of their accounts are as thrilling as anything out of Cervantes.... " I thought it was funny...and endearing...that Braudel's Go To for a thrilling adventure was Cervantes.
And in the same vein, check out this footnote:
I don't even know what that means, really, but (1) it's good to know that Braudel's DeFoe fixation--a very prominent feature in Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century--continues. I like that in a man and (2) I really need to read me some Daniel DeFoe.
Day Fourteen (DDRD 876): March 26, 2020
Read to page 130. Note:
Day Fifteen (DDRD 877): March 27, 2020
Started a new sub-section today which had this lovely and poetic title: "Islands that the sea does not surround."(131) If I were a young man (deedle needle deedle dee), I would have enough good book and story titles tucked away to last me for four or five decades' worth of writing. If I were very prolific. Which I would be, if I were a young man.
Read to page 140.
You know...I'm thinking that I should add David M. Glantz's Stalingrad Trilogy (four volumes) to my Daily Devotional Readings Wish List. I picked up the first volume from the public library awhiles back, and didn't get very far...but far enough to be interested. Also, I have, through various and diverse ways, come to the conclusion that the Battle of Stalingrad is the most important military battle in the history of the world so far. Problem: there's no Kindle version, and the books are pretty expensive: $27 + $34 + $34 + $38 = $133 was the best I could find...and that's a whole lot of love. Of course, the LFPL does have them all...but it's hard to imagine doing a Daily Devotional Reading without owning the book. Then again...volume one is a mere 680 pages long, so that just a tad over two months. Well...a moot point right now, as (1) I've made my commitment to The Mediterranean, and that's a three month or so commitment and (2) the public libraries aren't open right now, so I can't even go in and fondle these books. Still...well. We'll see. For future reference"
To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942 (Stalingrad Trilogy #1) 680 pages
Armageddon in Stalingrad: September - November 1942
(Stalingrad Trilogy #2) 920 pages
Endgame at Stalingrad: Book One: November 1942
(Stalingrad Trilogy #3, Book One) 680 pages
Endgame at Stalingrad: December 1942 February 1943
(Stalingrad Trilogy #3, Book Two) 768 pages
Oh, and by the way...there's also Companion to Endgame at Stalingrad, which weighs in at 848 pages, and which goes for $75.
So there's that.
So...3,896 pages' worth of Stalingrad? Oh, yeah.
Day Sixteen (DDRD 878): March 28, 2020
Learned a new word:
Read to page 160. Here's an interesting thing: On page 159, Braudel makes reference to the fact that "In 1529 the failure of the Turks to dig a Suez Canal, although it had been begun...." etc. I was really surprised that that was even an idea in 1529. And then I found this: "The legendary Sesostris (likely either Pharaoh Senusret II or Senusret III of the Twelfth dynasty of Egypt) may have started work on an ancient canal joining the Nile with the Red Sea (1897 BCE – 1839 BCE), when an irrigation channel was constructed around 1850 BCE that was navigable during the flood season, leading into a dry river valley east of the Nile River Delta named Wadi Tumilat. (It is said that in ancient times the Red Sea reached northward to the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah.)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal
Well...dip me in chocolate and call me a strawberry.
Day Eighteen (DDRD 880): March 30, 2020
Had to finish the last two pages of yesterday's reading late, so took the book to bed to finish it off. So it was beside me when I awakened at 5:00 am, and I didn't want to get out of bed because then the kids would be up, and during these Covid-19 Days it definitely helps not to get up too early (thus prolonging the day), so I went ahead and did my Daily Devotional Reading then and there, and read all the way to page 170. Braudel has wandered all the way up to Poland as he explores The Mediterranean World. Hmpf.
Day Nineteen (DDRD 881): March 31, 2020
Read to page 180. There was a reference to an arquebus which I thought must be some kind of rifle based upon (1) distant memory flotsam and (2) context, but I looked it up just to make sure. Here's a public domain illustration courtesy of Wikipedia:
So yep, I would have scored on that final Jeopardy! challenge.
Day Twenty (DDRD 882): April 1, 2020
Probably the saddest April Fool's Day in the past 100 years as we enter our third week of Covid-10 State Lockdown and watch the numbers for cases and deaths rise (873,541 cases, 43,294 deaths) and are being told that it is going to get much worse in the next two to three weeks. It's hard to think about anything other than The Virus...especially when you have two adult autistic children to take care of 3/4ths of the week...but without a bit of distraction and alcohol (only when the kids are at their mom's house for the night, judgers), I would probably lose what little mind I have left.
So...let's see what Fernand Braudel has to say about 🐠The Mediterranean🐠 today!
First up...
Read to page 190. No, really.
Day Twenty-One (DDRD 883): April 2, 2020
Read to page 200. Had a little laugh on the next to the last page of the day. Check out the last two sentences here:
So after an Introduction a Preface to the First English Edition, a Preface to the Second (French) Edition, a Preface to the First (French) Edition, an Introduction, and 199 pages of text (not counting illustration pages, figures, and endnotes), Braudel thinks he's ready to get started. You've got to love the guy.
Day Twenty-Two (DDRD 884): April 3, 2020
Read to page 210. Check this shit out:
"The Cardinal of Aragon, who reached the Netherlands in 1517 with his cook and his supplies, shared this opinion. 'Because of the butter and dairy produce which is so widely used in Flanders and Germany,' he concluded, 'these countries are overrun with lepers.'"
(206)
I'll bet that motherfucker would have voted for Trump.
There was a painting--artist uncredited, just said it was a painting from some castle wall--which caught my eye. It had peasants laboring in the background, and nobles hawking in the front. Here's the face of one of the peasants:
I mean...does that say it all or what? This ain't no party, this ain't no disco....
And hey...when I placed my two bookmarks in at the end of today's reading (one for page, one for endnotes) I noticed that the distance between the two was stating to look pretty slim. Another day or so and it will be 100 pages to go. Which is pretty exciting, isn't it? Well, fuck, it was to me, anyway.
Day Twenty-Three (DDRD 885): April 4, 2020
Read to page 220. Was going to push for three more pages so as to make it 100 pages left, but just didn't have it in me. It was a shitty day.
Day Twenty-Four (DDRD 886): April 5, 2020
Read to page 231.
Day Twenty-Five (DDRD 887): April 6, 2020
Keep in mind that this book was first published in 1949:
And in answer to that age-old questions, "Do mountains move?" there's this:
"Gerhard Solle claims that the mass of the eastern Alps is moving towards Bavaria, at negligible rate, it is true (one centimetre a year), but it is enough, at certain weak points, to cause avalanches, landslides, sometimes major disasters noted in Alpine history." (236)
Well...that sounded a bit iffy to me, so I Googled a bit and found this:
(at https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060517083426.htm) So there's that.
Read to page 240. I'm getting closer to my home.
Day Twenty-Six (DDRD 888): April 7, 2020
Read to page 250. Only one week to go here! Very exciting.
Day Twenty-Seven (DDRD 889): April 8, 2020
Read to page 260. And hey...remember awhile back (Day Four (DDRD 866): March 16, 2020, to be exact) when I was bitching about a reference to Spoleto--bitching because it wasn't Spalato, as in the most excellent Tamás István novel The Students of Spalato? Well, I guess Fernand Braudel was listening to me, cuz check this out from page 255:
And the Spalato narrative went on for a good one-half of a page. Which, of course, made me want to re-read the novel. Sigh. I am really going to have to live to a ripe old age in order to get all of this reading done.
Day Twenty-Eight (DDRD 890): April 9, 2020
Here's a bit of a clarifying statement:
Read to page Read to page 270. 53 pages to go!
Day Twenty-Nine (DDRD 891): April 10, 2020
Read to page 280.
More songs about ships. Big ships, little ships, medium sized ships. Also some more references to Spalato, which made me write myself a note: "Check index for Spalato." Said Index is not in the back of Volume I, however, so I looked in the back of Volume III, and there it was, in all its glory:
I don't know why I find this so exciting...but I must confess that I do. Blurry photo aside. (Hey, see how steady your hands are when you hit 62.5 years out of the womb.) ANYway...looks like I have more Spalato to look forward to in Volume II.
Day Thirty (DDRD 892): April 11, 2020
Read to page 290.
Day Thirty-One (DDRD 893): April 12, 2020
How little things have changed in the past five or six centuries:
"In short, throughout Europe a small group of well-informed men, kept in touch by an active correspondence, controlled the entire network of exchanges in bills or specie, thus dominating the field of commercial speculation. So we should not be too taken in by the appearance spread of 'finance.'" (291)
And given our current Cover-19 Pandemic, this is more than a bit chilling:
Read to page 300.
Day Thirty-Two (DDRD 894): April 13, 2020
Read to page 310. More songs about plague and starvation. One thing which I found particularly poignant:
In his discussion of various ways of plague through Europe, Braudel notes that it has a particularly disastrous effect upon the poor. In fact, he refers to "social massacres" of the poor. (303) Seen the news about the impact of Covid-19 on people of color and the poor? Mmm-hmmm.
Day Thirty-Three (DDRD 895): April 14, 2020
Read to page 323. As in The End! Yep. Finished Volume I. And it was a very nice little canter. I'd have to confess that it wasn't as good as Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, but (1) how could it be? I have the distinct impression that that was Braudel's masterwork, and (2) this was his first book...actually it was his thesis...so you can't expect it to be up there with his later work, I would think. But it has definitely had its moments, and I have enjoyed reading it. And the Folio edition I have been reading is just lovely. I'm glad that I took the plunge on that instead of going for a bargain priced version.
Anyway, here are a few things I wanted to remember from the last 13 pages:
"But they all had to adapt; it was the price of survival." (311)
Braudel is referring to cities enduring various political and economic crises in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but this pretty much applies to everything, doesn't it? Or, as Shara Nova (formerly Worden) sang, "Be ye changed or be ye undone."
Also, "...seventeenth century Rome was still a city living off others' earnings and still growing effortlessly without having been subjected to the stern discipline of productive labour." (315) Umm...this sounds SO familiar, doesn't it? And you DO remember how that worked out for Rome, right?
And a brief appearance by St. Lucy:
which made my heart sing.
Another new word: CONURBATION:
The End. Onward to Volume II tomorrow!
Hey, look who showed up in one of today's footnotes:
Yep, my old friend José Ortega y Gasset ⬇️
Man, I read "On Studying" at least a dozen times with my Great Books kids...and it always blew everybody away. A necessary corrective to the bullshit caked into the grout lines of the public education system, for .
Only read to page 14 (10 pages) today. I'd planned to do more, but it was a hard day. (Socially isolating with two autistic adults is challenging.)
Day Four (DDRD 866): March 16, 2020
I woke up this morning
At four ayem
The cat was meow-in'
And then she meow-ed again.
I couldn't get out of bed
'Cause it'd wake up the kids
So I picked up The Mediterranean
And here's what I did:
Page 16: "toils" again! After I first noticed this word in Civilization and Capitalism, 16th - 18th Century...I think it was in Volume 3: The Perspective of the World, though it might have been earlier than that...when I thought it was a typo for "coils." (I believe the phrase was "toils of rope," though I wouldn't bet the family farm on that. And then after I checked online and found out that it was, indeed, a word, I noticed it several more times. And lookee, here it comes again. Fernand Braudel must have some deep, subconscious connection to knotted rope.
On page 17, Braudel quotes Baron de Tott: "The steepest places have been at all times the asylum of liberty...." Which immediately made me think of 🏔Vermont🏔.
On page 19 there was a reference to Spoleto; was that the locale for the Tamás István novel? My memory was a little fuzzy, so I went to have a look. Turns out it was close but no cigar. The novel was The Students of Spalato (a superb novel, by the way, and you can find a copy for cheap on Amazon). Undeterred, I looked to Google Maps --just in case, you know?--and found out that (1) Spalato was no longer Spalato, it was now Split, and (2) it wasn't all that far away from Spoleto:
There was also a reference to tree bread being made in the mountains (this first chapter is all about mountains, in case you didn't notice the pattern). Made me want to bake a loaf, but I looked it up and it looks like it would cost about a hundred dollars to make it.
And last (for this early morning reading session, anyway...I'd like to put down a few more pages later today if possible), on pages 23 - 24 there was this bit: "In this way a social and cultural barrier is raised to replace the imperfect geographical barrier which is always being broken in a variety of ways." Which made me think of the contempt--sometimes couched in disguise as humor--expressed for 'Flatlanders' by some native Vermonters I have briefly met. I think I'm going to write a little bit about this. (We'll see how that works out, right? Details as they happen.)
And? Well, I got to page 27. So not bad...but I really wanted to hit page 30, just for the sake of evening things up. 40 tomorrow? We'll see.
Day Five (DDRD 867): March 17, 2020
Page 32 "...ease of communication is one of the first conditions of effective government."
That seems particularly pertinent to today's situation as Trump and the Republicans and their supporters attempt to bullshit their way through the Cover-19 Pandemic.
Sigh.
But I did make it to page 40 today, so there's that.
Day Six (DDRD 868): March 18, 2020
A ten page day. Which I timed, and was surprised to find that it took me a good 40 minutes. A few of them can be attributed to playing with the cat, fixing and fetching tea, and sipping from the aforementioned...but four minutes per page seems about right. For one thing, these are pretty text rich pages. For another, there aren't any interrupting illustrations--as there were in Civilization and Capitalism...wherein every ten pages =ed seven or eight pages. Also, there are a lot of notes to this text...and when you flip back to the notes, they're not just bibliographic information, they are little David Foster Wallacian asides. So in this book, I think ten pages is equal to eleven or twelve. Which is not a bad thing, it just means that ten pages per day is probably going to be the most I'll be going for...until it comes close to 1,000 day time, because I really do want to finish all three volumes of this work on that day. (But not before!)
Anyway...
Lots more information about The Plains, especially draining them so that they can be cultivated. Some of which was kind of interesting. Particularly...
From page 41, Fernand Braudel, who really DOES know better, commits a Crime Against Prefixes when he wonders...
Decimated. Deci is ten. Decimated means 1/10th destroyed. That's not a tragedy, it's a tithe. Hell, it's a B...maybe a B+ if you're on that lower standards grading scale. Fernand...come on, now.
The best part of today's reading, though, was this bit:
In his discussion of cultivating the flooded fields of the plains in Italy, Braudel says "Economic progress was assured - but at the price of social misery." (49) Maybe it's just the Commie in me, but I think that is an apt summation of damned near every economic system in the history of human beings on planet Earth.
He goes on to explain that the social misery is primarily the result of what amounts to slave labor...which is the only way to get this kind of work done--kind of like our own migrant workers.
A few pages later, Braudel asks, "Was the plain the rich man's fief to do with as he liked?" (51) Well, we all know that that's a rhetorical question, don't we?
Got to go watch some opera now. (Il Trovatore...with 🔥Anna Netrebko🔥!)
Day Seven (DDRD 869): March 19, 2020
Read to page 60. We're still in the plains...with malaria and rich people exploiting the living hell out of poor people. With a little Andalusia thrown in for good measure. And hey, get this: did you know that that Seville once had exclusive "ownership" of America? Yup. Check this out:
"America was given to Seville in 1503 for almost two centuries...as a legal monopoly."
Umm...what?
Also, check this out:
It's a detail from the painting, The Journey of the Magi (circa 1460) painted by Benozzo Gozzoli. Check out the size of that freakin' rabbit!
Day Eight (DDRD 870): March 20, 2020
Read to page 70. The biggest highlight...one of my all time favorite Braudel moments...maybe even my favoritest of all...came early today:
I mean, seriously...how can it get any better than Cheese Mass?
Also, when I read something like this:
I immediately want to find out more about the fellow. In this case, though, the only references to "Francesco Caldagno" were (1) to this book or (2) in Italian. So I guess that's that for Francesco.
Day Nine (DDRD 871): March 21, 2020
Read to page 80.
Jet i decided to have a rest on top of my book today, so I took advantage of the situation and Tweeted her:
Which I thought was pretty darned cute, but it didn't get a whole hell of a lot of hits (60 impressions, 1 engagement), so I had another go at it a bit later--with some input from a story I'd seen about Paulina Porizkova--
--which I thought was even darneder cuter, and it did a little better --259 impressions, 12 engagements. So there's that.
Also, two out-takes:
And one slightly tweaked version of the second Tweet image...'cause I liked the way the light washed out the window panes, and wanted to take it to the limit. (But just one more time.)
Day Ten (DDRD 872): March 22, 2020
Read to page 90.
Day Eleven (DDRD 873): March 23, 2020
Read to page 100. Have to confess that I never thought about the Mediterranean Sea as anything other than One Thing before...but Braudel is certainly showing me that that is like thinking of the Earth as having One Ocean. There are all kinds of nooks and crannies in that Mediterranean thing.
In fact, check this out: "In Greek literature (which is where the phrase entered Western literature), the Seven Seas were the Aegean, Adriatic, Mediterranean, Black, Red, and Caspian seas, with the Persian Gulf thrown in as a 'sea.'"
(Courtesy of The National Ocean Service @ https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sevenseas.html)
You learn something new every day, huh?
Day Twelve (DDRD 874): March 24, 2020
It's a two bookmark kind of book. Those end notes.
Read to page 110.
Day Thirteen (DDRD 875): March 25, 2020
Read to page 120. Found a few things I'd like to remember along the way.
"History sooner or later takes back her gifts." I thought that was
a particularly pertinent line via-a-vis our current situation. A week ago the American economy was booming, and we seemed to be on top of the world. Today our economy is nose first into the dirt, we're all scared and anxious, and we are hearing that there's a possibility that two million or more people could die from the Covid-19 Pandemic. Best not to think about that too much, I think.
So on a lighter note...after making reference to stories that were told about prison escapes from Algiers, Braudel says, "Some of their accounts are as thrilling as anything out of Cervantes.... " I thought it was funny...and endearing...that Braudel's Go To for a thrilling adventure was Cervantes.
And in the same vein, check out this footnote:
I don't even know what that means, really, but (1) it's good to know that Braudel's DeFoe fixation--a very prominent feature in Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century--continues. I like that in a man and (2) I really need to read me some Daniel DeFoe.
Day Fourteen (DDRD 876): March 26, 2020
Read to page 130. Note:
Day Fifteen (DDRD 877): March 27, 2020
Started a new sub-section today which had this lovely and poetic title: "Islands that the sea does not surround."(131) If I were a young man (deedle needle deedle dee), I would have enough good book and story titles tucked away to last me for four or five decades' worth of writing. If I were very prolific. Which I would be, if I were a young man.
Read to page 140.
You know...I'm thinking that I should add David M. Glantz's Stalingrad Trilogy (four volumes) to my Daily Devotional Readings Wish List. I picked up the first volume from the public library awhiles back, and didn't get very far...but far enough to be interested. Also, I have, through various and diverse ways, come to the conclusion that the Battle of Stalingrad is the most important military battle in the history of the world so far. Problem: there's no Kindle version, and the books are pretty expensive: $27 + $34 + $34 + $38 = $133 was the best I could find...and that's a whole lot of love. Of course, the LFPL does have them all...but it's hard to imagine doing a Daily Devotional Reading without owning the book. Then again...volume one is a mere 680 pages long, so that just a tad over two months. Well...a moot point right now, as (1) I've made my commitment to The Mediterranean, and that's a three month or so commitment and (2) the public libraries aren't open right now, so I can't even go in and fondle these books. Still...well. We'll see. For future reference"
To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942 (Stalingrad Trilogy #1) 680 pages
Armageddon in Stalingrad: September - November 1942
(Stalingrad Trilogy #2) 920 pages
Endgame at Stalingrad: Book One: November 1942
(Stalingrad Trilogy #3, Book One) 680 pages
Endgame at Stalingrad: December 1942 February 1943
(Stalingrad Trilogy #3, Book Two) 768 pages
Oh, and by the way...there's also Companion to Endgame at Stalingrad, which weighs in at 848 pages, and which goes for $75.
So there's that.
So...3,896 pages' worth of Stalingrad? Oh, yeah.
Day Sixteen (DDRD 878): March 28, 2020
Learned a new word:
(dictionary.com)
So there's that.
Also, there's this:
Not that it's a new thought by any means, but you know how sometimes something just hits you and burrows in whereas it may have glanced off previously? And even if it leaves a bruise, that fades and is forgotten. Well. This was a burrow in something for me. On page 146, Braudel observed that "If the innumerable nomads... had not been divided among themselves, they could easily have seized the lands of the Nile." I can't help but think that it is in every government's favor to promote hatred and divisiveness among its own people. So long as they are focusing their anger and violence at each other, they cannot pose a real threat to the people in power. Maybe that is the Real Genius of Donald Trump. By making outrageous statements about various different ethnic groups, he guarantees that two camps will form, and that they will focus their violence, both verbal and physical, primarily at each other. Which probably insures that not much will be done beyond talking. (Shouting is a subset of talking, obviously.)
Read to page 150.
Day Seventeen (DDRD 879): March 29, 2020Not that it's a new thought by any means, but you know how sometimes something just hits you and burrows in whereas it may have glanced off previously? And even if it leaves a bruise, that fades and is forgotten. Well. This was a burrow in something for me. On page 146, Braudel observed that "If the innumerable nomads... had not been divided among themselves, they could easily have seized the lands of the Nile." I can't help but think that it is in every government's favor to promote hatred and divisiveness among its own people. So long as they are focusing their anger and violence at each other, they cannot pose a real threat to the people in power. Maybe that is the Real Genius of Donald Trump. By making outrageous statements about various different ethnic groups, he guarantees that two camps will form, and that they will focus their violence, both verbal and physical, primarily at each other. Which probably insures that not much will be done beyond talking. (Shouting is a subset of talking, obviously.)
Read to page 150.
Read to page 160. Here's an interesting thing: On page 159, Braudel makes reference to the fact that "In 1529 the failure of the Turks to dig a Suez Canal, although it had been begun...." etc. I was really surprised that that was even an idea in 1529. And then I found this: "The legendary Sesostris (likely either Pharaoh Senusret II or Senusret III of the Twelfth dynasty of Egypt) may have started work on an ancient canal joining the Nile with the Red Sea (1897 BCE – 1839 BCE), when an irrigation channel was constructed around 1850 BCE that was navigable during the flood season, leading into a dry river valley east of the Nile River Delta named Wadi Tumilat. (It is said that in ancient times the Red Sea reached northward to the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah.)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal
Well...dip me in chocolate and call me a strawberry.
Day Eighteen (DDRD 880): March 30, 2020
Had to finish the last two pages of yesterday's reading late, so took the book to bed to finish it off. So it was beside me when I awakened at 5:00 am, and I didn't want to get out of bed because then the kids would be up, and during these Covid-19 Days it definitely helps not to get up too early (thus prolonging the day), so I went ahead and did my Daily Devotional Reading then and there, and read all the way to page 170. Braudel has wandered all the way up to Poland as he explores The Mediterranean World. Hmpf.
Day Nineteen (DDRD 881): March 31, 2020
Read to page 180. There was a reference to an arquebus which I thought must be some kind of rifle based upon (1) distant memory flotsam and (2) context, but I looked it up just to make sure. Here's a public domain illustration courtesy of Wikipedia:
So yep, I would have scored on that final Jeopardy! challenge.
Day Twenty (DDRD 882): April 1, 2020
Probably the saddest April Fool's Day in the past 100 years as we enter our third week of Covid-10 State Lockdown and watch the numbers for cases and deaths rise (873,541 cases, 43,294 deaths) and are being told that it is going to get much worse in the next two to three weeks. It's hard to think about anything other than The Virus...especially when you have two adult autistic children to take care of 3/4ths of the week...but without a bit of distraction and alcohol (only when the kids are at their mom's house for the night, judgers), I would probably lose what little mind I have left.
So...let's see what Fernand Braudel has to say about 🐠The Mediterranean🐠 today!
First up...
Surely that's not the same Koch family we all know and love in 21st century USAmerica, right? I mean...500 years is a long time to be in power, even for a country, much less for a family.
And here's why there weren't enough laughs in 16th Century Europe:
Read to page 190. No, really.
Day Twenty-One (DDRD 883): April 2, 2020
Read to page 200. Had a little laugh on the next to the last page of the day. Check out the last two sentences here:
So after an Introduction a Preface to the First English Edition, a Preface to the Second (French) Edition, a Preface to the First (French) Edition, an Introduction, and 199 pages of text (not counting illustration pages, figures, and endnotes), Braudel thinks he's ready to get started. You've got to love the guy.
Day Twenty-Two (DDRD 884): April 3, 2020
Read to page 210. Check this shit out:
"The Cardinal of Aragon, who reached the Netherlands in 1517 with his cook and his supplies, shared this opinion. 'Because of the butter and dairy produce which is so widely used in Flanders and Germany,' he concluded, 'these countries are overrun with lepers.'"
(206)
I'll bet that motherfucker would have voted for Trump.
There was a painting--artist uncredited, just said it was a painting from some castle wall--which caught my eye. It had peasants laboring in the background, and nobles hawking in the front. Here's the face of one of the peasants:
I mean...does that say it all or what? This ain't no party, this ain't no disco....
And hey...when I placed my two bookmarks in at the end of today's reading (one for page, one for endnotes) I noticed that the distance between the two was stating to look pretty slim. Another day or so and it will be 100 pages to go. Which is pretty exciting, isn't it? Well, fuck, it was to me, anyway.
Day Twenty-Three (DDRD 885): April 4, 2020
Read to page 220. Was going to push for three more pages so as to make it 100 pages left, but just didn't have it in me. It was a shitty day.
Day Twenty-Four (DDRD 886): April 5, 2020
Read to page 231.
Day Twenty-Five (DDRD 887): April 6, 2020
Keep in mind that this book was first published in 1949:
And in answer to that age-old questions, "Do mountains move?" there's this:
"Gerhard Solle claims that the mass of the eastern Alps is moving towards Bavaria, at negligible rate, it is true (one centimetre a year), but it is enough, at certain weak points, to cause avalanches, landslides, sometimes major disasters noted in Alpine history." (236)
Well...that sounded a bit iffy to me, so I Googled a bit and found this:
(at https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060517083426.htm) So there's that.
Read to page 240. I'm getting closer to my home.
Day Twenty-Six (DDRD 888): April 7, 2020
Read to page 250. Only one week to go here! Very exciting.
Day Twenty-Seven (DDRD 889): April 8, 2020
Read to page 260. And hey...remember awhile back (Day Four (DDRD 866): March 16, 2020, to be exact) when I was bitching about a reference to Spoleto--bitching because it wasn't Spalato, as in the most excellent Tamás István novel The Students of Spalato? Well, I guess Fernand Braudel was listening to me, cuz check this out from page 255:
And the Spalato narrative went on for a good one-half of a page. Which, of course, made me want to re-read the novel. Sigh. I am really going to have to live to a ripe old age in order to get all of this reading done.
Day Twenty-Eight (DDRD 890): April 9, 2020
Here's a bit of a clarifying statement:
Yowza. Three volumes, 1,530 pages, and it covers fifty years? That's an average of 12 days per page! Talk about drilling down, amiright?
Day Twenty-Nine (DDRD 891): April 10, 2020
Read to page 280.
More songs about ships. Big ships, little ships, medium sized ships. Also some more references to Spalato, which made me write myself a note: "Check index for Spalato." Said Index is not in the back of Volume I, however, so I looked in the back of Volume III, and there it was, in all its glory:
I don't know why I find this so exciting...but I must confess that I do. Blurry photo aside. (Hey, see how steady your hands are when you hit 62.5 years out of the womb.) ANYway...looks like I have more Spalato to look forward to in Volume II.
Day Thirty (DDRD 892): April 11, 2020
Read to page 290.
Day Thirty-One (DDRD 893): April 12, 2020
How little things have changed in the past five or six centuries:
"In short, throughout Europe a small group of well-informed men, kept in touch by an active correspondence, controlled the entire network of exchanges in bills or specie, thus dominating the field of commercial speculation. So we should not be too taken in by the appearance spread of 'finance.'" (291)
And given our current Cover-19 Pandemic, this is more than a bit chilling:
Read to page 300.
Day Thirty-Two (DDRD 894): April 13, 2020
Read to page 310. More songs about plague and starvation. One thing which I found particularly poignant:
In his discussion of various ways of plague through Europe, Braudel notes that it has a particularly disastrous effect upon the poor. In fact, he refers to "social massacres" of the poor. (303) Seen the news about the impact of Covid-19 on people of color and the poor? Mmm-hmmm.
Day Thirty-Three (DDRD 895): April 14, 2020
Read to page 323. As in The End! Yep. Finished Volume I. And it was a very nice little canter. I'd have to confess that it wasn't as good as Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, but (1) how could it be? I have the distinct impression that that was Braudel's masterwork, and (2) this was his first book...actually it was his thesis...so you can't expect it to be up there with his later work, I would think. But it has definitely had its moments, and I have enjoyed reading it. And the Folio edition I have been reading is just lovely. I'm glad that I took the plunge on that instead of going for a bargain priced version.
Anyway, here are a few things I wanted to remember from the last 13 pages:
"But they all had to adapt; it was the price of survival." (311)
Braudel is referring to cities enduring various political and economic crises in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but this pretty much applies to everything, doesn't it? Or, as Shara Nova (formerly Worden) sang, "Be ye changed or be ye undone."
Also, "...seventeenth century Rome was still a city living off others' earnings and still growing effortlessly without having been subjected to the stern discipline of productive labour." (315) Umm...this sounds SO familiar, doesn't it? And you DO remember how that worked out for Rome, right?
And a brief appearance by St. Lucy:
which made my heart sing.
Another new word: CONURBATION:
And then...
No comments:
Post a Comment