Preface to the English Edition page

Preface to the Second Edition

Preface to the First Edition

Part One THE ROLE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Ⅰ．THE PENINSULAS:MOUNTAINS,PLATEAUX,AND PLAINS

1．Mountains Come First

Physical and human characteristics

Defining the mountains

Mountains,civilizations,and religions

Mountain freedom

The mountains'resources:an assessment

Mountain dwellers in the towns

Typical cases of mountain dispersion

Mountain life:the earliest civilization of the Mediterranean?

2．Plateaux,Hills,and Foothills

The high plains

A hillside civilization

The hills

3．The Plains

Water problems:malaria

The improvement of the plains

The example of Lombardy

Big landowners and poor peasants

Short term change in the plains:the Venetian Terraferma

Long term change:the fortunes of the Roman Campagna

The strength of the plains:Andalusia

4．Transhumance and Nomadism

Transhumance

Nomadism,an older way of life

Transhumance in Castile

Overall comparisons and cartography

Dromedaries and camels:the Arab and Turk invasions

Nomadism in the Balkans,Anatolia,and North Africa

Cycles spanning the centuries

Ⅱ．THE HEART OF THE MEDITERRANEAN:SEAS AND COASTS

1．The Plains of the Sea

Coastal navigation

The early days of Portuguese discovery

The narrow seas,home of history

The Black Sea,preserve of Constantinople

The Archipelago,Venetian and Genoese

Between Tunisia and Sicily

The Mediterranean Channel

The Tyrrhenian Sea

The Adriatic

East and west of Sicily

Two maritime worlds

The double lesson of the Turkish and Spanish Empires

Beyond politics

2．Mainland Coastlines

The peoples of the sea

Weaknesses of the maritime regions

The big cities

The changing fortunes of maritime regions

3．The Islands

Isolated worlds

Precarious lives

On the paths of general history

Emigration from the islands

Islands that the sea does not surround

The Peninsulas

Ⅲ．BOUNDARIES:THE GREATER MEDITERRANEAN

A Mediterranean of historical dimensions

1．The Sahara,the Second Face of the Mediterranean

The Sahara:near and distant boundaries

Poverty and want

Nomads who travel far

Advance and infiltration from the steppe

The gold and spice caravans

The oases

The geographical area of Islam

2．Europe and the Mediterranean

The isthmuses and their north-south passages

The Russian isthmus:leading to the Black and Caspian Sea

From the Balkans to Danzig:the Polish isthmus

The German isthmus:an overall view

The Alps

The third character:the many faces of Germany

From Genoa tO Antwerp,and from Venice to Hamburg:the conditions of circulation

Emigration and balance of trade

The French isthmus,from Rouen to Marseilles

Europe and the Mediterranean

3．The Atlantic Ocean

Several Atlantics

The Atlantic learns from the Mediterranean

The Atlantic destiny in the sixteeth century

A late decline

Ⅳ．THE MEDITERRANEAN AS A PHYSICAL UNIT:CLIMATE AND HISTORY

1．The Unity of the Climate

The Atlantic and the Sahara

A homogeneous climate

Drought:the scourge of the Mediterranean

2．The Seasons

The winter standstill

Shipping at a halt

Winter:season of peace and plans

The hardships of winter

The accelerated rhythm of summer life

The summer epidemics

The Mediterranean climate and the East

Seasonal rhythms and statistics

Determinism and economic life

3．Has the Climate Changed Since the Sixteenth Century?

Supplementary note

Ⅴ．THE MEDITERRANEAN AS A HUMAN UNIT:COMMUNICATIONS AND CITIES

1．Land Routes and Sea Routes

Vital communications

Archaic means of transport

Did land routes increase in importance towards 1600?

The intrinsic problem of the overland route

Two sets of evidence from Venice

Circulation and statistics:the case of Spain

The double problem in the long term

2．Shipping:Tonnages and Changing Circumstances

Big ships and little ships in the fifteenth century

The first victories of the small ships

In the Atlantic in the sixteenth century

In the Mediterranean

3．Urban Functions

Towns and Roads

A meeting place for different transport routes

From roads to banking

Urban cycle and decline

A very incomplete typology

4．Towns,Witnesses to the Century

The rise in population

Hardships old and new:Famine and the wheat problem

Hardships old and new:epidemics

The indispensable immigrant

Urban political crises

The privileged banking towns

Royal and imperial cities

In favour of capitals

From permanence to change

Part Two COLLECTIVE DESTINIES AND GENERAL TRENDS

Ⅰ．ECONOMIES:THE MEASURE OF THE CENTURY

1．Distance,the First Enemy

For letter-writers:the time lost in coming and going

The dimensions of the sea:some record crossings

Average speeds

Letters:a special case

News,a luxury commodity

Present-day comparisons

Empires and distance

The three missions of Claude du Bourg(1576 and 1577)

Distance and the economy

Fairs,the supplementary network of economic life

Local economies

The quadrilateral:Genoa,Milan,Venice,and Florence

2．How Many People?

A world of 60 or 70 million people

Mediterranean waste lands

A population increase of 100 per cent?

Levels and indices

Reservations and conclusions

Confirmations and suggestions

Some certainties

Another indicator:migration

3．Is It Possible to Construct a Model of the Mediterranean Economy?

Agriculture,the major industry

An industrial balance sheet

The putting-out or'Verlag'system and the rise of urban industry

The system prospered

An itinerant labour force

General and local trends

The volume of commercial transactions

The significance and limitations of long distance trade

Capitalist concentrations

The total tonnage of Mediterranean shipping

Overland transport

The State:the principal entrepreneur of the century

Precious metals and the monetary economy

Was one fifth of the population in great poverty?

A provisional classification

Food,a poor guide:officially rations were always adequate

Can our calculations be checked?

Ⅱ．ECONOMIES:PRECIOUS METALS,MONEY,AND PRICES

1．The Mediterranean and the Gold of the Sudan

The flow of precious metals towards the east

Sudanese gold:early history

The Portuguese in Guinea:gold continues to arrive in the Mediterranean

The gold trade and the general economic situation

Sudanese gold in North Africa

2．American Silver

American and Spanish treasure

American treasure takes the road to Antwerp

The French detour

The great route from Barcelona to Genoa and the second cycle of American treasure

The Mediterranean invaded by Spanish Coins

Italy,the victim of'la moneda larga'

The age of the Genoese

The Piacenza fairs

The reign of paper

From the last state bankruptcy under Philip Ⅱ to the first under Philip Ⅲ

3．The Rise in Prices

Contemporary complaints

Was American treasure responsible?

Some arguments for and against American responsibility

Wages

Income from land

Banks and in flation

The'industrialists'

States and the price rise

The dwindling of American treasure

Devalued currency and false currency

Three ages of metal

Ⅲ．ECONOMIES:TRADE AND TRANSPORT

1．The Pepper Trade

Mediterranean revenge:the prosperity of the Red Sea after 1550

Routes taken by the Levant trade

The revival of the Portuguese pepper trade

Portuguese pepper:deals and projects

Portuguese pepper is offered to Venice

The Welser and Fugger contract:1586-1591

The survival of the Levantine spice routes

Possible explanations

2．Equilibrium and Crisis in the Mediterranean Grain Trade

The cereals

Some rules of the grain trade

The grain trade and the shipping routes

Ports and countries that exported grain

Eastern grain

Equilibrium,crisis,and vicissitudes in the grain trade

The first crisis:northern grain at Lisbon and Seville

The Turkish wheat boom:1548-1564

Eating home-produced bread:Italy's situation between 1564 and 1590

The last crisis:imports from the north after 1500

Sicily:still the grain store of the Mediterranean

On grain crises

3．Trade and Transport:The Sailing Ships of the Atlantic

Ⅰ．Before 1550:the first arrivals

Basque,Biscayan,and even Galician ships

The Portuguese

Normans and Bretons

Flemish ships

The first English sailing ships

The period of prosperity(1511-1534)

Ⅱ．From 1550 to 1573:the Mediterranean left to Mediterranean ships

The return of the English in 1572-1573

Anglo-Turkish negotiations:1578-1583

The success of English shipping

The situation at the end of the century

The arrival of the Hansards and the Dutch

From grain to spices:The Dutch conquer the Mediterranean

How the Dutch took Seville after 1570 without firing a shot

New Christians in the Mediterranean

Abbreviations