Thus beginneth my reading of Volume II of Fernand Braudel's The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Since it's the same book, different volume, I'm keeping the same numbering, but new blogpost because that makes my life a little bit easier.
Read to page 10. Some pretty interesting talk about the speed of travel and of mail delivery.
Day Thirty-Five (DDRD 897): April 16, 2020
Today's reading focused on distance and time required to cover it. It was kind of fascinating, actually--everything from letters to ships to horses. Apparently it took about two months to journey from one end of The Mediterranean to the other...a distance of about 2,300 miles. Um...that's about 38 miles per day. And check this out:
That's less than 25 miles in a day. I'm no horse, but my best day of walking...which didn't occupy the entire day, I might add...was 12 miles, so I'm not really all that impressed with 25.
ANYway...pretty fascinating little canter. Pun intended. Read to page 20.
Day Thirty-Six (DDRD 898): April 17, 2020
Another rather interesting little bit...still focusing on distances and time, but also getting into fairs a bit. Also, a reminder that Everything Old Is New Again:
"The islanders paid taxes for the building of road links, but the government used the money for other things, so the Sicilian interior had no properly maintained roads until the eighteenth century." (31)
Mmm-hmmm.
Read to page 31, btw.
Day Thirty-Seven (DDRD 899): April 18, 2020
Read to page 41.
Day Thirty-Eight (DDRD 900): April 19, 2020
Read to page 50.
Day Thirty-Nine (DDRD 901): April 20, 2020
Hmmm.
Looks like that possessive apostrophe fell and can't get up.
Read to page 60.
Day Forty (DDRD 902): April 21, 2020
Read to page 70.
Day Forty-One (DDRD 903): April 22, 2020
Read to page 80.
Day Forty-Two (DDRD 904): April 23, 2020
Read to page 90.
Day Forty-Three (DDRD 905): April 24, 2020
There's been some interesting stuff every day, but things have been kind of shitty, so I was just kind of keeping it moving. Today I couldn't resist a few quotes, though. Such as...
"...inequality between the very rich (perhaps 5 per cent) and the great mass of poor and very poor, with the gap between the small minority and this huge majority continually widening. I believe that if the observable attempts at social revolution failed, were not even clearly formulated, it was because of the intense, relative pauperization of large numbers of the population." (92)
Things just don't fucking change, do they? It's like inequity is just baked into the pie from the get-go...and it doesn't matter if it's blackberry, blueberry, strawberry, or squirrel.
Speaking of high calorie foods, check this shit out:
"The unexpected element in these past diets is that when the rations allotted to soldiers, seaman, galley-slaves, and poor-house inmates are measured for calorie content, they yield something like 4,000 calories a day." (97)
My God...they must have running at 100 degrees to burn off all of those calories. That's what I eat in two days...at least.
And finally...
"It has even been suggested, not unconvincingly, that the vitality of the Roman Empire was sapped by the haemorrhage of precious metals." (101)
So there's that.
Read to page 100. (I always finish the first paragraph on the next page, in case you're wondering why my last quote came from one page further on than I said I'd read to.)
Day Forty-Four (DDRD 906): April 25, 2020
Read to page 110. Gold and silver.
Day Forty-Five (DDRD 907): April 26, 2020
Read to page 120. Not the most interesting reading this time out, I'm sorry to say.
Day Forty-Six (DDRD 908): April 27, 2020
Read to page 130.
Day Forty-Seven (DDRD 909): April 28, 2020
Read to page 140.
More about silver and gold...and the shift to paper money came in at the end of today's reading, which was kind of interesting. Also, this footnote...
...is kind of amazing of you think about it. Can you imagine ow many records Fernand Braudel had to go through before he found this reference to holding fairs at Poligny in August of 1568? It boggles the mind. And now multiply that amount of time by the thousands of other facts that Braudel had to substantiate, and you wonder how a book like this can ever be written.
Day Forty-Eight (DDRD 910): April 29, 2020
Read to page 150.
Day Forty-Nine (DDRD 911): April 30, 2020
Read to page 160.
Day Fifty (DDRD 912): May 1, 2020
Read to page 170.
Speaking of which...in this here Volume II I've got 490-170 = 320 = 32 more days to go. And in Volume III there are 340 = 34 days to go. For a total of 66 days. Well, maybe a little more than that, since Volume III has a big fat Index, and I feel obliged to at least give each page of that a cursory glance. But either way, it looks like I should be able to finish the whole thing with a good three weeks to spare. I was kind of thinking that it'd be nice to finish right on the dot, though. You know. But that's just my anus speaking, I guess. (Of course, I could cut back to 7.5 pages per day, and then I'd come out right on the dot. Hmmmm.)
Day Fifty-One (DDRD 913): May 2, 2020
Read to page 180.
Day Fifty-Two (DDRD 914): May 3, 2020
Read to page 190.
A lot of information about pepper.
Day Fifty-Three (DDRD 915): May 4, 2020
Read to page 200.
Day Fifty-Four (DDRD 916): May 5, 2020
So...58 pages into this chapter, Braudel says
Which I thought was high-larious.
Read to page 210.
Day Fifty-Five (DDRD 917): May 6, 2020
Read to page 220.
Day Fifty-Six (DDRD 918): May 7, 2020
Read to page 230. Sorry to say it...and maybe I'm just in a shitty mood--but I'm kind of tired of this book.
Day Fifty-Seven (DDRD 919): May 8, 2020
Read to page 240.
Day Fifty-Eight (DDRD 920): May 9, 2020
Read to page 250.
Day Fifty-Nine (DDRD 921): ⺟May 10, 2020⺟
Read to page 260.
Day Sixty (DDRD 922): May 11, 2020
Read to page 270.
Day Sixty-One (DDRD 923): May 12, 2020
Read to page 280.
Day Sixty-Two (DDRD 924): May 13, 2020
But despite that (↑) weariness, I have soldiered on. And the other day...or maybe it was earlier today? Things get a little bleary sometimes...I read an article online somewhere about books to read during the pandemic or some such nonsense, and at the end of it there was a little questionnaire...something like What are you reading? How's that going for you? And then you listed your contact information and they said that a reporter might could contact you. So I filled it in...with this book, and with a short statement about how all of the terrible shit happening now (politics, plague, disasters) had happened during the 16th century...in some cases even worse than what's going on now...and that since "we" survived that then, it gave me some small hope that we might survive this now. And then I spent most of the day reading a book my #1Son had recommended to me (Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork...which was superb, by the way...especially if you care about autistic people), and as it was getting later I even had the thought, "Maybe I'll just take the day off from my Daily Devotional Reading." Which I have only done once since DDRD 1...and that was the day I went to the Emergency Room. But then I started thinking about that questionnaire and my responses to said questionnaire...and I picked up my bed and began to walk. And hey, check this shit out:
And finally, this:
"'The laws of Spain,' wrote the aging Rodrigo Vivero in about 1632, 'are like spiders' webs, catching only flies and gnats.'"
And in case that's too subtle, Fernand Braudel adds, "The rich and powerful escaped their toils and the only ones who became entangled were the unprivileged and the poor, 'los desfavorecidos y los pobres', a state of affairs not confined to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries." (290)
Now does that sound familiar or what?
Oh, yeah...read to page 290.
Day Sixty-Three (DDRD 925): May 14, 2020
Hey, look, ma: only 75 more days until Daily Devotional Reading Day 1,000! I have to admit it, I'm pretty excited about it. Going to have to be some kind of celebration. Involving cake, perhaps. Or maybe a nice Reuben sandwich.
Speaking of celebration...check this out:
Big wheels keep on turning. Read to page 300. Less than 200 to go in Volume II now.
Day Sixty-Four (DDRD 926): May 15, 2020
Read to page 310.
Day Sixty-Five (DDRD 927): May 16, 2020
Read to page 320.
Day Sixty-Six (DDRD 928): May 17, 2020
Read to page 330. Timed it, and it took 23 minutes.
Volume II 489 - 330 = 159 = 16 days
+
Volume III 337 = 34 days
TOTAL 50 days
And then I'll have 22 days for whatever whatever. I'm thinking pretty hard about that Peat book that I bought in Ireland--Peat and Peat Cutting by Ian D. Rotherham. Not only did my son laugh at me when I bought this book...the BOOKseller laughed at me. They just don't understand the lure of peat, I suppose. This book is only 60 pages long, though, so I guess it's actually too short to fill the bill. All of the other books I have lined up for the DDR are more than I can handle in 22 days. Whilst poking around on the shelves, though, I did find The Monstrosity of Christ by Slavoj Žižek and Creston Davis, and that would be an interesting way to round out the first 1,000 days. It would also give a nice arc to it, in that I'd be returning to philosophy (more or less), which is where I began on Day 1. It's a tad "too long" at 300+ pages, but I think I could swing it. Strong possibility.
Read to page 340. Two things.
Thing 1: Why you should listen to your teacher in high school English class:
Thing 2: Stephen Miller's Wet Dream:
Day Sixty-Eight (DDRD 930): May 19, 2020
Read to page 350.
Day Sixty-Nine (DDRD 931): May 20, 2020
Read to page 360. Several interesting things.
From page 351, there's this:
"There can be no doubt that society was tending to polarise into, on the one hand, a rich and vigorous nobility reconstituted into powerful dynasties owning vast properties and, on the other, the great and growing mass of the poor and disinherited, 'caterpillars and grubs', human insects, alas too many. A deep fissure split open traditional society, opening up gulfs which nothing would ever bridge...."
That sounds kind of relevant, doesn't it?
Then there's this:
...from the picture facing page 359, which just goes to show that even the Folio Society needs better proofreaders. (The last line of the caption for the top picture is actually part of the caption for the bottom picture. In fact, the sentence is repeated in the caption for that bottom picture.
And there was this from page 360:
Tell me that that hasn't made its way into the Trump Playbook.
Day Seventy (DDRD 932): May 21, 2020
Read to page 370.
Day Seventy-One (DDRD 933): May 22, 2020
Read to page 380.
Day Seventy-Two (DDRD 934): May 23, 2020
Some interesting material on The Moriscos...of and about whom I previously had not heard. They were former Moslems who lived in Spain...until the government expelled them. Braudel noted that this wasn't racism so much as it was distrust for a people who steadfastly held onto their own culture...or, as the Spanish hierarchy saw it, "refused to assimilate." It made me think about Trump and Stephen Miller...how maybe their opposition to Mexicans, for instance, might actually be more like this hatred for those who "refuse" to assimilate than anything else. Which is, perhaps, just as bad as racism, but it seems to me that if nothing else, the motivation is different. It also raises questions about what it means to be a citizen of another country...perhaps questions which deserve to be raised and discussed in public forums today. It would no doubt lead to lots of venomous shit being loosed upon the world, but I think it could eventually lead to some better understanding if we had the guts for it.
Maybe.
Read to page 390--which means there are now less than 100 pages to go in Volume II.
Day Seventy-Three (DDRD 935): 🌞May 24, 2020🌞*
Speaking of Moriscos...
They stayed in my mind, so I did a little Googling around and found some interesting stuff. For instance, a book with the intriguing title This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611, which was edited by Patrick J. O'Banion. Amazon had a Kindle Free Sample, so I read that, and it was quite interesting. Here's some stuff I made note of:
"While popular imagination associates inquisitors almost exclusively with the sadistic torture of those who challenged the status quo, these documents offer a better sense of the breadth of inquisitorial work, as officials in Madrid and Cuenca interacted (and disagreed) with one another and with the local representatives of the Holy Office in Deza."
"Rather than assimilating like the Judeoconversos, many of Deza’s Moriscos kept their Old Christian neighbors at a distance."
"Deza had between six and eight priests attached to the parish church."
That seemed pretty generous for such a small town--at its peak, the population was only 1,600. (According to Wikipedia, the current ration is 1 priest to 2,000 parishioners.)
"Inquisitorial trials were not necessarily the horrific affairs imagined by popular culture. They were, in fact, more careful about following proper procedure than most other law courts in early modern Europe.53 Yet trials frequently stretched on for years, and, when defendants were believed to be withholding the truth, torture might be used. "
I was pretty interested in reading more, but the Kindle version goes for $18, so I'm still mulling that over. Meanwhile, I found a Google Books Preview which has some pages beyond what Amazon gave, so I'll have a look at that. Maybe that will be enough to satisfy my Moriscos hunger.
And if not, then there's this: whilst looking to see if the public library had any materials on the Moriscos, I found that there was a novel about their plight--The Devils of Cardona by Matthew Carr-- which looked interesting. Also took a look at this Matthew Carr fellow and found two interesting things: (1) apparently this subject is pretty important to him, as he wrote another book--Blood and Faith : The Purging of Muslim Spain 1492 (non-fiction)--about it, and (2) he also wrote a book entitled The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism, which, oddly enough, I purchased some time ago...but, alas, only read a few pages of. Maybe I will go back for it now that it's in my mind.
So. Might be some more of that, then.
Meanwhile...no more Moriscos in today's pages, as we have moved on to the Jews, who endured the same shitty treatment in Spain. Ah, White people. You just have to wonder, don't you?
Read to page 400.
You know, one of the things that reading all of the endnotes gives you is a sense of the immensity of this topic. So many times Braudel will write a comment after or before a note which says, in essence, "This is one of the best books on _____ that I have read." And the _____ will be some really obscure thing, like copper tea kettles manufactured in the first quarter of the thirteenth century southeastern Italy during the rainy seasons. It's just astounding. It makes you wonder how anybody ever writes anything, in a way--other than made-up shit, of course. And even there a lot of the time there are tons of research hours lying behind the lies.
Also, Braudel mentioned that the word "ghetto" originally came from the Venetian word for "foundry"--as in iron foundry. Which I thought was pretty darned interesting. And I believed Mr. Braudel, of course, but I checked on it anyway. Here's some Wikipedian confirmation:
"The word "ghetto" comes from the Jewish area of Venice, the Venetian Ghetto in Cannaregio, traced to a special use of Venetian ghèto, or "foundry", as there was one near the site of that city's ghetto in 1516. By 1899 the term had been extended to crowded urban quarters of other minority groups."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ghettoetymology
So there's that.
* It's my #1🌞's birthday.
Day Seventy-Four (DDRD 936): May 25, 2020
Still on about The Jews. Just kiddin' about that sassy tone, by the way. But yes, there is more information about the Jewish population of the Mediterranean World during the sixteenth century. One aspect of which I found particularly interesting was Braudel's idea that the reason that Jews were drawn to things like banking and money lending was because their experience as outcasts in various European societies made them particularly well-suited to such enterprises--the fact that they had to be able to speak multiple languages (apparently 4-6 were common, and 10 or more not uncommon), the fact that they had to be able to adjust to different mores and customs, etc. If they hadn't been so poorly treated by so many other nations, they might not have developed that skill set. Which of course doesn't lessen the injustice or in some cases the horror of their poor treatment, but it does give some insight into the whole process.
Also, I was happy to see this bit:
Read to page 410. Which means only a week and a day left in Volume II if I stay on script. Pretty exciting, huh?
Day Seventy-Five (DDRD 937): May 26, 2020
Read to page 420. Thought this bit from page 415 was interesting:
"But were the Inquisition, the Catholic Kings, the various rulers of Spain and Portugal really the major forces responsible for a combat urged by the profound desires of the multitude?"
Apply that to Trump and what do you get? Mmm-hmmm. Pretty scary, huh?
In other news...I finished reading the Google Books 56 (of 265) page preview of This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611, edited by Patrick J. O'Banion...and it was really interesting. Interesting in that I Would Like To Have Some More Of That. I also think that you could make a superb movie based on this book. Ah, if only I were thirty years younger and ten million dollars richer.... I also started reading Matthew Carr's The Devils of Cardona, which is a novel about the plight of the Moriscos vis-a-vis the Spanish Inquisition. It's looking pretty good. So I will read that, and then maybe I'll have had enough on the subject and can save some money. Time (and I) will tell.
Day Seventy-Six (DDRD 938): May 27, 2020
Here's a surprising thing:
Wish there were some photographs of that, but I suppose they've been lost in the intervening 500 years.
And here's an interesting thing. Check out this sentence structure:
I wish that I were man enough to diagram that one.
BTW, I also checked out the phrase "real regular clerics," and found, much to my surprise, that it meant something specific--to wit:
Clerics regular are those bodies of men in the Church who while being essentially clerics, devoted to the exercise of the ministry in preaching, the administration of the sacraments, the education of youth, and other spiritual and corporal works of mercy, are at the same time religious in the strictest sense of the word, and living a community life according to a rule approved by the Holy See.
In the Corpus Juris Canonici the term "clerics regular" is often used for canons regular, and regular clerics are classed by authors as a branch or modern adaptation of the family of canons regular. This is because of the intimate connection existing between the two; for while separated from the secular clergy by their vows and the observance of a community life and a rule, they form a distinct class in the religious state, the clerical, in opposition to the monastic, which includes monks, and hermits.
Clerics regular are distinguished from the purely monastic bodies, or monks, in four ways:
They are primarily devoted to the sacred ministry; not so the monks, whose proper work is contemplation and the solemn celebration of the liturgy.
They are obliged to cultivate the sacred sciences, which, if cultivated by the monks, are yet not imposed upon them by virtue of their state of life.
Clerics regular as clerics must retain some appearance of clerical dress. This does not forbid orders of Clerics regular to wear religious habits. It only requires that the habit of a cleric regular resembles clerical dress.
Because of their occupations, they are less given to the practice of austerity which is a distinct feature of the purely monastic life.
They are distinguished from the friars in this, that though the latter are devoted to the sacred ministry and the cultivation of learning, they are not primarily priests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerics_regular
Which is (1) kind of cool, (2) makes me slightly more confused about this passage--is Braudel being a smart ass here? and (3) shows me, once again, as if I needed to be shown, that I can read carefully and still have no idea what the writer is actually talking about...even if I know all of the words. Which is why it is always helpful to read with other intelligent people. Man, I wish I could convince somebody to do these readings with me. Anybody? Hello? Is there anybody OUT THERE?
Fuck.
[39 @ 4/15/20]
BTW, read to page 430.
P.S. You know, I was just thinking...This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611 is 264 pages long. That's not too far from perfect for the 22 days I have between finishing Volume III of The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II and DDRD 1000. Hmmmm.
Day Seventy-Seven (DDRD 939): May 28, 2020
Read to page 440.
Saw this
Day Seventy-Eight (DDRD 940): May 29, 2020
I hate to admit it...but ever since I saw the movie Gallipoli (which was probably when it came out, in 1981), I thought that the eponymous location was somewhere in Australia. No doubt it was a combination of Mel Gibson and marijuana which led me to this conclusion. But today, whilst doing my Daily Devotional Reading, there was a reference to said location...and there it was, in Turkey. Well, you live long enough and eventually you learn, right?
Also, there was this on page 449, which I thought was interesting:
"Cortese on arriving in Mexico burnt his boats; he had to triumph or die."
That's something, isn't it?
Read to page 450.
And as the end of Volume II looms closer, I've been thinking harder about what comes after Volume III. I read a bit of The Monstrosity of Christ, and it was interesting, for sure...but it just wasn't what I felt like pursuing next. And I've also been reading a little bit of The Devils of Cardona, and finding it pretty interesting...and AbeBooks had a near fine copy of This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611 for not too much ($20.09 for book plus tax plus shipping)...and I went for it. So there you have it. That should take me to DDRD 1000, and from there I will have lots of great stuff to choose from, since I'll no longer be trying to fit something into a certain number of days.
Just thought you should know.
Day Seventy-Nine (DDRD 941): May 30, 2020
Read to page 460.
One of the sub-sections was entitled
And as soon as I saw those words, it hit me.
See, last night I was up until very late...past 1 am...watching the local news...because there were people walking through the streets of Louisville breaking windows, setting fires, destroying cars, spray painting historic statues. I wasn't worried about my own safety, since all of this was happening downtown, which is a long eleven miles from my front door. But I've lived in Louisville since 1980 (minus two which I spent in South Bend, Indiana)...and I was worried for the life of my city. And I was just stunned by the fact that there were people who took delight in destroying things like this. I didn't understand it at all.
But if Piracy is a Substitute for Declared War...well, it makes a lot of sense then, doesn't it? The people who are taking part in that street violence are at war. Not all for the same reason, but united in the fact that they are at war...and with an enemy who is much more powerful than they are. So since they can't fight a declared war, they commit acts of piracy. They strike back in the only way that they can. And to them, there is no difference between the white cops who shot and killed a woman who was sleeping in her own bed and the facade of the downtown Subway or the statue of King Louis XVI.
It doesn't make me any happier...but at least I can begin to wrap my brain around it.
Day Eighty (DDRD 942): May 31, 2020
Read to page 470. Also read the last "Figure" and decided to go ahead and finish off the last "Notes"--which together constitute a whopping 116 pages. So the last two days of Volume II readings will be Note and Figure free...which does smooth things out a bit. Reading a book with two bookmarks (which could really be three, after all) is not that much fun. So there.
Oh, I almost forgot this:
Specifically this:
Needless to say, I needed to find out what a "filza" was. Unfortunately, the usual suspect online dictionaries were no hope whatsoever.
But fortunately, Quranicanames had this:
"Filza is a non-Quranic Arabic name for girls that means “most beloved”. Its literal meaning is “piece of one’s being”, someone you love so much that they are like a part of your own self. In Arabic this usually refers to one’s children, especially in the phrase Aflaazu Akbaadiha.
"Filza also means “piece of gold”, “piece of silver”, or any other metal. It is not from the Quran but since it has a good meaning Muslims can use it. It is pronounced [(FIL)m] + [(Z)oom + r(U)n] and written as فِلْزَة in Arabic. In English it can also be written as Felza, Filza, Philza, Fylza." (https://quranicnames.com/filza/)
But as interesting as that was, it still didn't seem to do me any good...other than the good of knowing that I would henceforth think of my children (even the boys) as Filza.
So I looked some more, and somewhere along the line I got the suggestion of looking for it in the Italian language.
And in an Italian dictionary, I found this definition: "a string"...as in a string of pearls. Well...that's pretty fucking gross, isn't it?
Day Eighty-One (DDRD 943): June 1, 2020
Read to page 480. Pirates all the way down. And a mere 9 pages left in Volume II...so of course I'm thinking about finishing it off today.
And?
Went for it. Got it. Thought these things were worth remembering:
"During every period, until at least the eighteenth century, economic progress was inevitably at the expense of the ever-increasing masses, the victims of 'social massacres'."
"It is possible to claim that the jiha-d or crusade was almost invariably encouraged by an unfavourable economic situation."
--near the end of a scholarly tome?
(And btw, Agnadello is a reference to one of the great battles of The Italian Wars.)
And last but not least, this:
"Within Christendom, outbreaks of anti-Semitism appear to coincide with foreign wars. It was in times of economic depression that the Jews were persecuted throughout the Christian world."
P.S. You know, I was just thinking...This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611 is 264 pages long. That's not too far from perfect for the 22 days I have between finishing Volume III of The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II and DDRD 1000. Hmmmm.
Day Seventy-Seven (DDRD 939): May 28, 2020
Read to page 440.
Saw this
on page 434 and was kind of surprised...I mean, we are talking about Martin Luther here, aren't we? Let's see...he lived at the right time...and he apparently didn't like The Turks much--"Luther posited that any Turk 'who earnestly believes in the Koran' is not worth being considered a human being."
(https://www.worms.de/en/web/luther/Lutherkritik/Luther_Tuerken.php)
So...yep, I suppose it was him after all. Disappointing. (Ex-Lutheran here.)
And there was another Spalato sighting:
Tiny little thing, eh?
I hate to admit it...but ever since I saw the movie Gallipoli (which was probably when it came out, in 1981), I thought that the eponymous location was somewhere in Australia. No doubt it was a combination of Mel Gibson and marijuana which led me to this conclusion. But today, whilst doing my Daily Devotional Reading, there was a reference to said location...and there it was, in Turkey. Well, you live long enough and eventually you learn, right?
Also, there was this on page 449, which I thought was interesting:
"Cortese on arriving in Mexico burnt his boats; he had to triumph or die."
That's something, isn't it?
Read to page 450.
And as the end of Volume II looms closer, I've been thinking harder about what comes after Volume III. I read a bit of The Monstrosity of Christ, and it was interesting, for sure...but it just wasn't what I felt like pursuing next. And I've also been reading a little bit of The Devils of Cardona, and finding it pretty interesting...and AbeBooks had a near fine copy of This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611 for not too much ($20.09 for book plus tax plus shipping)...and I went for it. So there you have it. That should take me to DDRD 1000, and from there I will have lots of great stuff to choose from, since I'll no longer be trying to fit something into a certain number of days.
Just thought you should know.
Day Seventy-Nine (DDRD 941): May 30, 2020
Read to page 460.
One of the sub-sections was entitled
And as soon as I saw those words, it hit me.
See, last night I was up until very late...past 1 am...watching the local news...because there were people walking through the streets of Louisville breaking windows, setting fires, destroying cars, spray painting historic statues. I wasn't worried about my own safety, since all of this was happening downtown, which is a long eleven miles from my front door. But I've lived in Louisville since 1980 (minus two which I spent in South Bend, Indiana)...and I was worried for the life of my city. And I was just stunned by the fact that there were people who took delight in destroying things like this. I didn't understand it at all.
But if Piracy is a Substitute for Declared War...well, it makes a lot of sense then, doesn't it? The people who are taking part in that street violence are at war. Not all for the same reason, but united in the fact that they are at war...and with an enemy who is much more powerful than they are. So since they can't fight a declared war, they commit acts of piracy. They strike back in the only way that they can. And to them, there is no difference between the white cops who shot and killed a woman who was sleeping in her own bed and the facade of the downtown Subway or the statue of King Louis XVI.
It doesn't make me any happier...but at least I can begin to wrap my brain around it.
Day Eighty (DDRD 942): May 31, 2020
Read to page 470. Also read the last "Figure" and decided to go ahead and finish off the last "Notes"--which together constitute a whopping 116 pages. So the last two days of Volume II readings will be Note and Figure free...which does smooth things out a bit. Reading a book with two bookmarks (which could really be three, after all) is not that much fun. So there.
Oh, I almost forgot this:
Specifically this:
Needless to say, I needed to find out what a "filza" was. Unfortunately, the usual suspect online dictionaries were no hope whatsoever.
But fortunately, Quranicanames had this:
"Filza is a non-Quranic Arabic name for girls that means “most beloved”. Its literal meaning is “piece of one’s being”, someone you love so much that they are like a part of your own self. In Arabic this usually refers to one’s children, especially in the phrase Aflaazu Akbaadiha.
"Filza also means “piece of gold”, “piece of silver”, or any other metal. It is not from the Quran but since it has a good meaning Muslims can use it. It is pronounced [(FIL)m] + [(Z)oom + r(U)n] and written as فِلْزَة in Arabic. In English it can also be written as Felza, Filza, Philza, Fylza." (https://quranicnames.com/filza/)
But as interesting as that was, it still didn't seem to do me any good...other than the good of knowing that I would henceforth think of my children (even the boys) as Filza.
So I looked some more, and somewhere along the line I got the suggestion of looking for it in the Italian language.
And in an Italian dictionary, I found this definition: "a string"...as in a string of pearls. Well...that's pretty fucking gross, isn't it?
Day Eighty-One (DDRD 943): June 1, 2020
Read to page 480. Pirates all the way down. And a mere 9 pages left in Volume II...so of course I'm thinking about finishing it off today.
And?
Went for it. Got it. Thought these things were worth remembering:
"During every period, until at least the eighteenth century, economic progress was inevitably at the expense of the ever-increasing masses, the victims of 'social massacres'."
(483-484)
"It is possible to claim that the jiha-d or crusade was almost invariably encouraged by an unfavourable economic situation."
(486)
And how can you help but love a guy who does this--
(And btw, Agnadello is a reference to one of the great battles of The Italian Wars.)
And last but not least, this:
"Within Christendom, outbreaks of anti-Semitism appear to coincide with foreign wars. It was in times of economic depression that the Jews were persecuted throughout the Christian world."
(487)
Sad to see that, at least in Braudel's eyes, so much of our history spins out of our wars. You'd think we'd be better than that, wouldn't you?
Well...maybe not.
Onward to Volume III tomorrow. But I think I'm just going to keep it to myself for awhile, as I'm pretty sure that nobody else gives a shit about my notes on a history book. So...if you're here, thanks for your support. See you in the next life, maybe.
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