About this title: Volume one in a three-volume set that examines the material life of pre-industrial peoples around the world. This volume describes food and drink, dress and housing, demography and family structure, energy and technology, money and credit and the growth of towns.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Near Fine. Trade Paperback. University of California Press, 1992. Near Fine Book. Aside from very light spine creases, overall a clean and tight, lightly read copy. Media mail packed in protective bubble lined shipping bags, Priority in a Flat Rate Envelope. Shipped quickly. Prompt response to questions. read more
Edition: First edition. 5th Printing, First California Printing
Binding: Wraps
Publisher: University of California Press, Berkeley
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780520081147ISBN:0520081145
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. NF(creased) 8vo. Wraps 623pp. Maps, Graphs, Illus, Index. read more
Description: FINE. Crisp, clean, unread paperback with light to moderate shelfwear/edgewear to the covers and a publisher's mark to one edge-Nice! ! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: University of California Press
Date Published: 12-23-92
ISBN-13:9780520081147ISBN:0520081145
Description: FINE. Crisp, clean, unread paperback with light to moderate shelfwear/edgewear to the covers and a publisher's mark to one edge-Nice! ! 2.45 lbs. read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Edition: 4th Printing
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: University of California Press, Berkeley, California, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780520081147ISBN:0520081145
Description: Illustrated. Near Fine. 6.5 x 9 trade paperback book. Red and white lettering on the color illustrated cover. A remarkable picture of human life in the centuries before the human condition was radically changed by the growth of industry that has yet been represented. 623 pages. 4th printing. Light wear. Tight binding. Near Fine condition. read more
Description: Fine; Collectible. Stated First American Edition hard cover-slight wear to dust jacket-basically a brand new clean fine collectible-enjoy. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: University of California Press
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780520081147ISBN:0520081145
Description: Good with no dust jacket. 0520081145. Civilization and Capitalism: 15th-18th Century; Ex-Library; 1.6 x 8.9 x 6.5 Inches; 623 pages. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN-13:9780520081147ISBN:0520081145
Description: Good. 0520081145 Good condition. May have some markings & or shelfwear. All pages intact. Used items may not include extras such as infotrac, CD or other web access codes. read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: UNIV OF CALIFORNIA PR
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780520081147ISBN:0520081145
Description: New. 'This is the most remarkable picture of human life in the centuries before the human condition was radically changed by the growth of industry that has yet been presented. A book of great originality, a masterpiece. '-J.H. Plumb, Washington Post Book... read more
"Those who think about the apocalypse, and wonder if it will happen to us, should read this book and be reminded that great tragedies are the norm, rather than the exception for most of human history.
I'm going to start a review of this book even though I'm not done with it, because I think I may not finish it. It's a little on the pedantic side, with the author using academese and endeavoring to prove the merits of his methodology even at the cost of readability. It has illustrations, which are nice.
For a writer, this is a good sort of book to read if one is writing about anything pre-industrial. The omnipresences of famine, plague, and wars slips our mind when we are fortunate enough to be healthy, fat, and safe. For those prone to depression, it's a bit hard to read of the endless misery and brutality of most of human existence.
Update: nearly two weeks later, and I'm still reading it. This is why I hate research. I really do. Because you read books that are informative but BORING. BORING. BORING. Really, I get that he's done a gazillion hours of research, but did he have to put everything in? And it's so Eurocentric that even I'm a little offended. I'm still learning interesting facts, like that Europe seemed to be the only place where people ruthlessly followed clothing fashions, but I'm also learning boring and useless things, like how many quintals of wheat a horse could thresh as opposed to a pair of oxen.
Don't know if I'm going to finish it or not. I feel like I've got sunk costs now, but damn, it's boring. Why oh why can't historians write well? Do they really think we're going to be impressed by big words and lots of details? Do they really think that convoluted sentence structure makes us think they're smarter? The writer is trying to cover four centuries of life, all over the world, but he skips Africa and Australia almost entirely, dwells on France overmuch, and tends to throw everything together with such poor organization that it's hard to tell which fact relates to which century.
After this I'm going to have to read some YA to cleanse my palette."
"Massive. This book is massive. But taking it apart piece by piece, it is a masterful and epic book on the history of "Western" civilization. The running theme of this text is the history of the common persons over time and around the world. It is a type of micro-history that posits a radical vision of the world and turns history as we popularly know it on its head. The chapter on cities is exhaustive and vivid. It is engaging to read because, in some ways, like E.P.Thompson, Braudel brings history to life. The reader can sense the rats that run around in the dirty cities of the Old World as though s/he was commuting through the streets two centuries ago her/himself. That is one of the valuable things about this book: it offers a useful blueprint for writing history and ethnography -- in the case of anthropologists.
The history of cities he presents demonstrate just how draining and unsustainable urban centers truly are. They are expensive to make and maintain and they require and demand a concentration of paupers within its parameters. Not only do they, like magnets, attract the poor, but create an underclass as well in order to maintain the services required for city dwellers that would otherwise be too expensive to have. These features continue to exist in much the same ways today. In this regard as well, Braudel's work is timeless and enlightening.
His discussion of population, migration, and city planning also offers further insights into the complexity of cities as conceptual categories and as living organisms -- if they can be conceived as such."
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