Preface to the English Edition page 13
Preface to the Second Edition 14
Preface to the First Edition 17
Part One THE ROLE OF THE ENVIRONMENT 25
Ⅰ．THE PENINSULAS:MOUNTAINS,PLATEAUX,AND PLAINS 25
1．Mountains Come First 25
Physical and human characteristics 25
Defining the mountains 30
Mountains,civilizations,and religions 34
Mountain freedom 38
The mountains'resources:an assessment 41
Mountain dwellers in the towns 44
Typical cases of mountain dispersion 47
Mountain life:the earliest civilization of the Mediterranean? 51
2．Plateaux,Hills,and Foothills 53
The high plains 53
A hillside civilization 55
The hills 58
3．The Plains 60
Water problems:malaria 62
The improvement of the plains 66
The example of Lombardy 72
Big landowners and poor peasants 75
Short term change in the plains:the Venetian Terraferma 78
Long term change:the fortunes of the Roman Campagna 81
The strength of the plains:Andalusia 82
4．Transhumance and Nomadism 85
Transhumance 85
Nomadism,an older way of life 87
Transhumance in Castile 91
Overall comparisons and cartography 94
Dromedaries and camels:the Arab and Turk invasions 95
Nomadism in the Balkans,Anatolia,and North Africa 98
Cycles spanning the centuries 101
Ⅱ．THE HEART OF THE MEDITERRANEAN:SEAS AND COASTS 103
1．The Plains of the Sea 103
Coastal navigation 103
The early days of Portuguese discovery 108
The narrow seas,home of history 108
The Black Sea,preserve of Constantinople 110
The Archipelago,Venetian and Genoese 115
Between Tunisia and Sicily 116
The Mediterranean Channel 117
The Tyrrhenian Sea 120
The Adriatic 124
East and west of Sicily 133
Two maritime worlds 134
The double lesson of the Turkish and Spanish Empires 135
Beyond politics 137
2．Mainland Coastlines 138
The peoples of the sea 138
Weaknesses of the maritime regions 140
The big cities 145
The changing fortunes of maritime regions 146
3．The Islands 148
Isolated worlds 149
Precarious lives 151
On the paths of general history 154
Emigration from the islands 158
Islands that the sea does not surround 160
The Peninsulas 162
Ⅲ．BOUNDARIES:THE GREATER MEDITERRANEAN 168
A Mediterranean of historical dimensions 168
1．The Sahara,the Second Face of the Mediterranean 171
The Sahara:near and distant boundaries 171
Poverty and want 173
Nomads who travel far 176
Advance and infiltration from the steppe 177
The gold and spice caravans 181
The oases 185
The geographical area of Islam 187
2．Europe and the Mediterranean 188
The isthmuses and their north-south passages 188
The Russian isthmus:leading to the Black and Caspian Sea 191
From the Balkans to Danzig:the Polish isthmus 195
The German isthmus:an overall view 202
The Alps 206
The third character:the many faces of Germany 208
From Genoa tO Antwerp,and from Venice to Hamburg:the conditions of circulation 211
Emigration and balance of trade 214
The French isthmus,from Rouen to Marseilles 216
Europe and the Mediterranean 223
3．The Atlantic Ocean 224
Several Atlantics 224
The Atlantic learns from the Mediterranean 225
The Atlantic destiny in the sixteeth century 226
A late decline 230
Ⅳ．THE MEDITERRANEAN AS A PHYSICAL UNIT:CLIMATE AND HISTORY 231
1．The Unity of the Climate 231
The Atlantic and the Sahara 232
A homogeneous climate 234
Drought:the scourge of the Mediterranean 238
2．The Seasons 246
The winter standstill 246
Shipping at a halt 248
Winter:season of peace and plans 253
The hardships of winter 255
The accelerated rhythm of summer life 256
The summer epidemics 258
The Mediterranean climate and the East 259
Seasonal rhythms and statistics 260
Determinism and economic life 265
3．Has the Climate Changed Since the Sixteenth Century? 267
Supplementary note 272
Ⅴ．THE MEDITERRANEAN AS A HUMAN UNIT:COMMUNICATIONS AND CITIES 276
1．Land Routes and Sea Routes 276
Vital communications 278
Archaic means of transport 282
Did land routes increase in importance towards 1600? 284
The intrinsic problem of the overland route 289
Two sets of evidence from Venice 290
Circulation and statistics:the case of Spain 293
The double problem in the long term 295
2．Shipping:Tonnages and Changing Circumstances 295
Big ships and little ships in the fifteenth century 299
The first victories of the small ships 300
In the Atlantic in the sixteenth century 301
In the Mediterranean 306
3．Urban Functions 312
Towns and Roads 312
A meeting place for different transport routes 316
From roads to banking 318
Urban cycle and decline 322
A very incomplete typology 323
4．Towns,Witnesses to the Century 324
The rise in population 326
Hardships old and new:Famine and the wheat problem 328
Hardships old and new:epidemics 332
The indispensable immigrant 334
Urban political crises 338
The privileged banking towns 341
Royal and imperial cities 344
In favour of capitals 351
From permanence to change 352
Part Two COLLECTIVE DESTINIES AND GENERAL TRENDS 355
Ⅰ．ECONOMIES:THE MEASURE OF THE CENTURY 355
1．Distance,the First Enemy 355
For letter-writers:the time lost in coming and going 355
The dimensions of the sea:some record crossings 358
Average speeds 360
Letters:a special case 363
News,a luxury commodity 365
Present-day comparisons 370
Empires and distance 371
The three missions of Claude du Bourg(1576 and 1577) 374
Distance and the economy 375
Fairs,the supplementary network of economic life 379
Local economies 382
The quadrilateral:Genoa,Milan,Venice,and Florence 387
2．How Many People? 394
A world of 60 or 70 million people 394
Mediterranean waste lands 398
A population increase of 100 per cent? 402
Levels and indices 403
Reservations and conclusions 410
Confirmations and suggestions 412
Some certainties 413
Another indicator:migration 415
3．Is It Possible to Construct a Model of the Mediterranean Economy? 418
Agriculture,the major industry 420
An industrial balance sheet 427
The putting-out or'Verlag'system and the rise of urban industry 430
The system prospered 432
An itinerant labour force 433
General and local trends 434
The volume of commercial transactions 438
The significance and limitations of long distance trade 441
Capitalist concentrations 444
The total tonnage of Mediterranean shipping 445
Overland transport 448
The State:the principal entrepreneur of the century 449
Precious metals and the monetary economy 451
Was one fifth of the population in great poverty? 453
A provisional classification 457
Food,a poor guide:officially rations were always adequate 459
Can our calculations be checked? 460
Ⅱ．ECONOMIES:PRECIOUS METALS,MONEY,AND PRICES 462
1．The Mediterranean and the Gold of the Sudan 463
The flow of precious metals towards the east 463
Sudanese gold:early history 466
The Portuguese in Guinea:gold continues to arrive in the Mediterranean 469
The gold trade and the general economic situation 472
Sudanese gold in North Africa 474
2．American Silver 476
American and Spanish treasure 476
American treasure takes the road to Antwerp 480
The French detour 484
The great route from Barcelona to Genoa and the second cycle of American treasure 487
The Mediterranean invaded by Spanish Coins 493
Italy,the victim of'la moneda larga' 496
The age of the Genoese 500
The Piacenza fairs 504
The reign of paper 508
From the last state bankruptcy under Philip Ⅱ to the first under Philip Ⅲ 510
3．The Rise in Prices 516
Contemporary complaints 519
Was American treasure responsible? 521
Some arguments for and against American responsibility 522
Wages 524
Income from land 525
Banks and in flation 528
The'industrialists' 532
States and the price rise 532
The dwindling of American treasure 536
Devalued currency and false currency 537
Three ages of metal 541
Ⅲ．ECONOMIES:TRADE AND TRANSPORT 543
1．The Pepper Trade 543
Mediterranean revenge:the prosperity of the Red Sea after 1550 545
Routes taken by the Levant trade 549
The revival of the Portuguese pepper trade 554
Portuguese pepper:deals and projects 556
Portuguese pepper is offered to Venice 558
The Welser and Fugger contract:1586-1591 560
The survival of the Levantine spice routes 562
Possible explanations 568
2．Equilibrium and Crisis in the Mediterranean Grain Trade 570
The cereals 570
Some rules of the grain trade 571
The grain trade and the shipping routes 576
Ports and countries that exported grain 579
Eastern grain 583
Equilibrium,crisis,and vicissitudes in the grain trade 584
The first crisis:northern grain at Lisbon and Seville 585
The Turkish wheat boom:1548-1564 591
Eating home-produced bread:Italy's situation between 1564 and 1590 594
The last crisis:imports from the north after 1500 599
Sicily:still the grain store of the Mediterranean 602
On grain crises 604
3．Trade and Transport:The Sailing Ships of the Atlantic 606
Ⅰ．Before 1550:the first arrivals 606
Basque,Biscayan,and even Galician ships 607
The Portuguese 608
Normans and Bretons 609
Flemish ships 612
The first English sailing ships 612
The period of prosperity(1511-1534) 613
Ⅱ．From 1550 to 1573:the Mediterranean left to Mediterranean ships 615
The return of the English in 1572-1573 621
Anglo-Turkish negotiations:1578-1583 625
The success of English shipping 626
The situation at the end of the century 628
The arrival of the Hansards and the Dutch 629
From grain to spices:The Dutch conquer the Mediterranean 630
How the Dutch took Seville after 1570 without firing a shot 636
New Christians in the Mediterranean 640
Abbreviations 642