Bellek ve Akdeniz: Tarihöncesi ve Antikçağ

by Fernand Braudel, Ali Berktay (Translator)

Ülkemizde de tanınan bir tarihçi olan Fernand Braudel, alanlararası ve karşılaştırmalı bir tarih yaklaşımına sahip olan Annales ekolünün önde gelen isimlerindendir.

Hayatta olduğu sırada yayımlanamayan, ancak ölümünden on üç yıl sonra okuyucuyla buluşabilen bu eserde anlatı tarihöncesinden, hatta Akdeniz tabanının ve çevresindeki dağların oluşumundan başlıyor. İnsanın diğer türlerden ayrılarak insanlaşmasının öyküsüyle devam eden eserde tarım, yazı, deniz yolculuğu, ticaret ve imparatorlukların doğuşuna yol açan büyük güçler parlak bir üslupla açıklanıyor, bölgenin coğrafyasının ve ikliminin binyıllar içinde yarattığı etkiler ayrıntılarıyla gözler önüne seriliyor. Fenikelilerin, Etrüsklerin, Yunanlılar ile Romalıların, Mezopotamya ile Mısır'ın kuruluşlarını, birbirleriyle ilişkilerini ve sönüp kayboluşlarını tutkulu bir dille anlatan yazar, çalışmalarını yürüttüğü dönemdeki son arkeolojik bulguları da işin içine kattığı bu son derece canlı ve kapsamlı çalışmasıyla, Akdeniz'de insanlık tarihinin başlangıcına yeniden hayat kazandırıyor.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Middle East, Ancient, European History, Greece

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Fernand Paul Achille Braudel was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects: The Mediterranean (1923–49, then 1949–66), Civilization and Capitalism (1955–79), and the unfinished Identity of France (1970–85). His reputation stems in part from his writings, but even more from his success in making the Annales School the most important engine of historical research in France and much of the world after 1950. As the dominant leader of the Annales School of historiography in the 1950s and 1960s, he exerted enormous influence on historical writing in France and other countries.

Braudel has been considered one of the greatest of the modern historians who have emphasized the role of large-scale socioeconomic factors in the making and writing of history. He can also be considered as one of the precursors of world-systems theory.

Reviews

[GoldGato · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a real slow start for me. I was very excited to finally be reading Braudel, but it wasn't coming together for me for the first 100 or so pages. That made me feel like an outcast. Others enjoyed this history, why not moi? Perhaps because the history of the Mediterranean took a long time to unfold, but with the sudden end of the Bronze Age, everything started to gallop along.

Okay, I'll admit I'm a little obsessed with the whole 1230-1177 BC thing, when one cataclysm after another doomed the golden age of the true ancients. Goodbye Hittites (we hardly knew ye), goodbye Minoans, goodbye Trojans. I mean, what really happened? Here, Braudel brings up the Sea Peoples theory (which I still don't completely buy), but more importantly he connects the dots to show that a sudden dark age can happen at any time, for which we should all take warning.

Climate Change. Drought. Famine. Earthquakes. Volcanoes. Tsunamis. War. Overcrowding. Throw in human hubris and this makes for a whopping tale. Now the Mediterranean history opened up, leading me through the emergence of light with Homer and the Phoenicians and the Greeks and the Carthaginians and the Romans. Exciting stuff. This was when I started enjoying Braudel and his little asides.

Iron was a kind of liberator.

Yes it was, and brings back the old adage of change being good even if we don't see it as so at the time it happens. Bronze had only been available to the very privileged, but Iron opened everything up, creating more layers of upward mobility. I loved this part of the book.

There are some rifts which time cannot heal.

So, overall I give it four stars because I struggled through the first third, but was completely enthralled by the remainder. Indeed, I was upset to discover the book ends with Braudel linking to a next series (to be written by someone else) which never took place. And I loved some of his thoughts. Why did the Industrial Revolution take place in England in the 18th Century? Could it have happened earlier, in the Mediterranean Age, if the migrating tribes hadn't upset the balance? Would we be flying around in personal jet cars now, if it had? So very interesting.

Book Season = Summer (it's the Med)

[Tuncay Özdemir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Braudel, Akdeniz tarihi konusunda çok önemli bir isim. Herhangi bir tarihçiyi dinlediğinizde mutlaka Braudel’e bir referansı oluyor. Ben de uzun zamandır bir Braudel eseri okumak istiyordum. Diğerleri maşallah üçer ciltlik olduğu için daha basit ve genel bir okuma olduğu için bu kitabı tercih ettim. Sonuç olarak ülkenin malum gündeminin de araya girmesiyle çok uzun bir okuma oldu.

Bu kitapta Braudel, tarih öncesi devirlerden gelip Roma’nın Akdeniz birliğini sağlayana kadarki tüm süreci, politik tarihe aşırı odaklanmadan, gerekçeleriyle anlatıyor. Hele kitabın başındaki tüm Akdeniz havzasına dair coğrafya, tarım ve maden tarifi etkileyici. Gerçekten coğrafya bilmeden tarih de anlaşılmıyor. Neden bir yerdeki ülke diğerine göre belli açılardan üstün geliyor, neden belli alana yönelmek zorunda kalıyorlar daha net anlaşılıyor. Bir örnek: Fenikelilerin denizci ve tüccar bir millet olduğunu biliyoruz ama onları diğerlerinden üstün kılan neydi? Yazara göre Fenikelilerin ana karalarında bulunan bir gölden çıkan bir tür zift, gemilerinin dış sıvasında çok işlevsel oluyor, gemilerinin su almasını engelliyormuş. Diğer uluslar daha başlangıç seviyesindeyken Fenikeliler bu avantaj sayesinde çok gelişmiş gemiler yapabilmişler. Güzel bilgi değil mi?

Dikkatimi çeken ya da altını çizdiğim başka hususları şöyle sıralayabilirim:

Demirin yaygınlaşması: Demirin karbonizasyonu (karbon karışımıyla sertleştirilmiş demirin üretilmesi), Kafkasya’da ya da daha doğrusu Kilikya'da başlamış ve uzun süre Hitit İmparatorluğu’nun tekelindeymiş. Dolayısıyla, Hitit İmparatorluğu’nun parçalanmasının, demircilerin ve sıklıkla şeytan işi olarak görülen gizemli zanaatlarının dünya çapında yayılmasına katkıda bulunmuş.

Alfabenin bulunması: Fenike alfabesinde sesli harf yokmuş. Mesela Kartaca, Fenike dilinde şöyle yazılıyormuş: qrt-ḥdšt. Anlamı da yeni şehir demekmiş. Yunanlılar MÖ 8. yüzyılda Fenike alfabesini kopyaladıklarında, kendi dillerini anlaşılır biçimde yazmak için ünlülere karşılık gelen işaretlere ihtiyaç duymuşlar. Bu nedenle, Yunanca’da bulunmayan bir dizi sessiz harfinin sembollerini alarak bunları ünlüler için kullanmışlar ve böylece hem sessiz hem de ünlü harflerden oluşan tam bir alfabe elde edilmiş.

Köken tartışmaları: Fenike ve Kartacalıların semitik olduğunu bilmiyordum, öğrendiğim iyi oldu. (Ne yazık ki insan kurban etme var bunlarda) Yazar aynı zamanda İskitlerin Indo-European olduğunu söylüyor. Bu da ilginç geldi. Ve tabii ki Toscana’lıların Etrüsk kökenleri.

Santorini yanardağı: Güncelle ilgili olduğu için buraya daha bir dikkat kesildim. Yazara göre hala zaman zaman püsküren Santorini, bugün dörtte üçü deniz tarafından örtülmüş durumdaki bir Vezüv’dür. Patladığı zaman Girit’e, Yunan anakarasına, Ege kıyılarına ciddi etkileri oluyormuş.

Yunan’a mal etme: Antik kültürü tamamiyle Yunan’a mal etme çok yaygın olsa da burada yazar bu konuda karşılıklı etkileşimin hakkını net şekilde vermis bence. Hatta Yunanca olmayan şeylerin bir listesini dahi yapmış ve ortaya ilginç bir görüntü çıkmış: Persefone, Girit, Parnassos, Buğday, şarap, incir ağacı, zeytin ağacı, zambak, gül, yasemin vb. Bunların hiçbirinin kökeni Yunanca değilmiş. (Girit zaten başka bir uygarlığın yaşam alanı – Minoalılar // söylenene göre Mykenler her yerde Giritlilerin ayak izlerine basarak ilerlemişler) (Yazar şöyle diyor konu hakkında: Biz Batılılardaki “Yunan mucizesi” fikri, yaşayan her uygarlığın, her insan topluluğunun kendine kökenler bulma, kendi zevkine uygun atalar yaratma gereksiniminden geliyor olmasın sakın?)

Kolonizasyonlar: Yunan kolonizasyonunda İspanyol-Portekiz kolonizasyonuna ilginç bir benzerlik var. Ege kıyılarındaki iyon devletlerinin en güçlüleri Foçalılar ve Miletliler 15 ve 16. yy’da İspanya ve Portekiz’in yaptığı gibi, dünyayı batı-doğu şeklinde aralarında paylaşırlar. Foçalılar batıya gider, bugünkü Marsilya’yı kurar. Milet ise doğuya gider, aralarında Sinop’un da olduğu çok sayıda Karadeniz kentini kurar. Fenike kolonizasyonu ise bana Amerika’nın kuruluşunu hatırlattı. Aynen İngiltere gibi kıtaya hapsolmuş Fenike, Mısır ve Mezapotamya uygarlıkları arasından bir çıkış yolu olarak uzak batıya gider ve Tunus kıyılarında Kartaca’yı (yeni şehir) olarak kurar. Sonrasında Kartaca’nın birincil güç olması ABD’nin yazgısıyla paralellik taşır bana kalırsa.

Meyve sebzelerin yolculuğu: Biliyoruz ki domates ve patates gibi Amerikan kökenli sebzeler coğrafi keşiflerden sonra gelmiş. Ama bugün bize yerli gibi gelen birçok meyve ve sebzenin de Akdeniz’de yaygınlaşması zaman almış. Şeftali Çinden, kayısı Türkistan’dan, ayva Girit’ten yaygınlaşmış. Hiç şüphe yok ki şarap, zeytinyağı ve buğday çok önceden Akdenizlileşmiş.

Ve elbet Roma: Akdeniz’in tam merkezi konumunda yer alan Roma devleti önce İtalya’yı birleştirir, ardından Kartaca’ya boyun eğdirir. Yazar Yunanların doğuyla çok ilgilenmesini bu bağlamda eleştirir. Roma’nın kaderi olan şey aslında Yunanlar tarafından çok daha önce gerçekleştirilebilirdi! Yunanistan ve tabii ki İskender, Batı’yı küçümsemiştir deniyor.

Tarihlendirmelerde sonraki arkeolojik çalışmalarla ufak tefek sapmalar olmuş, onlar yazarın ölümünden sonra dip notlarla düzeltilmiş. Onun dışında gayet güzel bir okuma. Devamı Bizans’la olacakmış ama sonra proje rafa kalkmış. Olsun buna da şükür.

[Guido · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il mio affetto per questo mare, e per le terre che lo circondano, mi ha condotto verso questo libro. Sono molto grato a Braudel per la sua scrittura, perché il suo modo di descrivere e raccontare ha saputo alimentare la mia meraviglia: forse non sarei stato in grado di leggere una trattazione più formale e accademica; la sua vivace passione per l'argomento dei suoi studi mi ha davvero aiutato. Difficilmente ricorderò le date, e forse neppure i nomi - queste informazioni sono soltanto la base di questo libro, che parte dalla preistoria e attraversa tutta la storia antica del Mediterraneo non per amore della cronologia, ma del mare e delle persone che per prime l'hanno vissuto e affrontato, superando difficoltà a cui oggi forse diamo troppo poco peso: "Abbiamo un’eccessiva tendenza a credere alla dolcezza, alla facilità spontanea della vita nel Mediterraneo. Ci si lascia ingannare dal fascino del paesaggio."
I capitoli dedicati alla preistoria sono davvero coinvolgenti. In un certo senso la davo per scontata, perché sono nato su un'isola che che ne offre testimonianze ricchissime e speciali, ed ero abituato a ricacciarla indietro, oltre l'incerta linea di demarcazione che la separa dalla storia. Vederla intersecarsi con la cultura classica delle ultime epoche trattate in questo libro - influenzandone stili, caratteri, migrazioni, credenze - mi ha permesso di liberarmi di quell'assurdo confine temporale.

Non è un libro di guerre, trattati e alleanze; Braudel indugia il più possibile nell'esplorazione delle diverse culture che circondano e attraversano il mare. I colori degli affreschi sono descritti minuziosamente, per arricchire l'ambiente con l'impressione di quelle rappresentazioni: così le pagine sull'arte cretese sono animate da un incontenibile entusiasmo per ogni dettaglio dipinto - fiori, ciuffi d'erba, stelle di mare e pesci alati - in elenchi vertiginosi, stilisticamente perfetti, di ottima sensibilità poetica. Si legge di città scomparse, si imparano i percorsi delle carovane, ci si avvicina con circospezione al mare: è meraviglioso seguire i progressi della marina del Mediterraneo, vedere come le prime rozze imbarcazioni si evolvono per trovare forme più adatte ad affrontare il mare; leggere della gratitudine dei primi antichissimi marinai che, raggiunta Malta, disegnavano sul pilastro del tempio di Hal Tarxien i profili delle loro imbarcazioni, sovrapponendoli a quelli dei loro predecessori, in un'inestricabile confusione di ex voto. Lo sviluppo delle scienze, degli alfabeti, del commercio, delle lingue, delle tecniche agricole e costruttive è descritto con la stessa cura, quella di chi è davvero arrivato ad amare l'oggetto delle sue ricerche, e si dedica a comunicare la sua passione più che a compilare un resoconto dei suoi studi. Le note aiutano a chiarire i punti che all'epoca della stesura del libro erano ancora poco chiari o limitati dalle conoscenze allora disponibili, da scavi non ancora ultimati o documenti da decifrare.

Al termine della lettura mi sono guardato intorno, sentendomi un po' più ricco, e un po' più desolato: la prospettiva offerta da questo libro rende davvero ridicole le pretese nazionaliste di molti politicanti d'oggi; conferma la tristezza delle guerre; accentua il dolore provocato da frontiere, muri, divisioni del mondo moderno. Adesso, con qualche piccola idea in più sul passato di questi popoli, non posso considerare queste cose senza provare un forte senso di perdita.

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first geohistorian is Herodotus, but the first geohistorian, with an adequate and more scientific preparation, is Braudel.

Not only does he manages to study reality without separating human and geological phenomena but he even goes to the point of philosophising and theorizing about it.

Without a doubt, the best chapter is when he starts to speak about Greece: the new looks he gives on the classical philosophy, polis and most famous events is enriching and a joy.

He may be too technical, but two things: he was french and he was, probably, the best historian and geographer that ever existed.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Braudel and his style of history and powers of narration is a great read. The only catch is that he died thirty years ago and there have been so many new archaeological finds in the period covered by this book. This was intend as yet another series but never completed.

[Tim Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

_Memory and the Mediterranean_ is a previously unpublished book by French historian Fernand Braudel, one written in the 1960s and originally intended to be part of a larger series. Set aside with the death of the author's longtime friend and editor, Albert Skira and the collapse of the project, the book was only published for the first time in 1998, well after the author's death in 1985.

In the book's introduction, written by Oswyn Murray, we learn something of the history of the book and the series it was supposed to be a part of, as well as the life of Braudel himself. Braudel was an interesting man; he invented microfilm, copying thousands of historical texts for study prior to accepting a position at a Brazilian university, and his most famous work, _The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II_, he wrote during four years of captivity in a POW camp in France, aided by a few books, but "using mainly his prodigious memory of his prewar researches," writing the great treatise out by hand in exercise books on a small plank in a room shared with twenty other prisoners.

As there have been some advances in archaeology as well as changes in historical thinking, endnotes accompanied the text, with experts Jean Guilaine covering prehistory and Pierre Rouillard on history. I was surprised how few endnotes there were, as substantially much of what Braudel written is still current. Many of the notes referred to different dates for events and in particular artifacts - not surprising, as Braudel himself noted in the text how advances were continually being made in scientific dating methods - and in a few other areas, notably thoughts on prehistoric megalithic culture in the Mediterranean and on the crisis of the twelfth century B.C (both of which he seemed to have largely gotten wrong, not that either formed a very large part of the book's content).

Overall I found the book quite broad in scope, dealing mainly with regions, empires, movements, and the "longue duree," which is often translated as "the long perspective." Except for the last chapters on Greece and Rome, named individuals are rarely discussed. Much of the book dealt with the rise and fall of empires, the advancement and consequences of the mastery of new technologies such as pottery and weaving, as well as the continuing evolution of others, such as metalworking (tracing the advent of bronze, then iron), language (the development of an alphabet was to have profound consequences) and seafaring (his sections on the continuing evolution of ship technology were interesting and well-illustrated with contemporary art), and the development of trade and long-distance exchange in the Mediterranean as a whole and separately in the eastern and western portions. While it was good to have such a broad perspective that transcended local dynasties and city-states, sometimes it made for somewhat dry reading.

The book was epic in scope, covering the Mediterranean from prehistoric times to the founding of what would come to be the Byzantine Empire. The ancient Jews and Christians didn't get a lot of coverage but some other Mediterranean civilizations - notably the Phoenicians, Minoans, Carthaginians, and the Etruscans - are covered in detail. Indeed Braudel's work contained the most information on the Etruscans that I have personally ever read.

One of things that Braudel did that I liked the most was to make comparisons of ancient Mediterranean countries, entities, and movements with more recent counterparts. He compared the scribes of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to the mandarin class of China, as it took years to master early writing and number systems, restricting writing and calculating to a privileged and talented elite. Continuing the China analogy, Egypt thanks to its rich harvest of grain and large amounts of Nubian gold (Nubia means "land of gold") was for centuries economically dominant and self-sufficient, extremely confident and self-centered. Much as Spain once was made rich and become dependent upon New World silver, so too did the Phoenicians and later the Carthaginians become rich and dependent upon rich silver mines in Spain. Carthage itself was a new city that sprouted from nothing like an American town according to Braudel, for a time a materialistic, fast-moving, dynamic melting pot of a civilization.

One thing about the work that I both liked a lot and disliked was the fact that Braudel would bring up a fascinating point and then pretty much drop it. He speculated on why the "Macedonian Wunderkind" (a.k.a. Alexander the Great) didn't turn his great drive to the west rather than the east, conquering Carthage (something the Carthaginians greatly feared) and turning the entire Mediterranean into a Greek lake. He raised this point, discussed a little what might have happened, and then dropped the point in about three pages. Similarly he mused on the vast difference between Greek science and philosophy and the actual urge to apply these thoughts and ideas to mechanical experiments and practical tools, why there was no full-scale industrial revolution in Rome, and why when there were Romans who had produced steam-powered toys but had not then sought to apply this to a wide range of applications. He dismissed the standard answer to the question - that the existence of slavery killed any drive to produce labor saving devices - by noting that among other things that the workers in the early English and then the European industrial revolution hardly had a good standard of living and he seemed to imply that they were little better than slaves themselves (perhaps in fairness no one has the answer here). Braudel also briefly discussed whether or not conflict between Carthage and Rome was inevitable, a section that I thought ended just as it was getting interesting (as for a time the Etruscans, Greeks, and Phoenicians/Carthaginians shared the same sea).

An interesting book, one worthwhile I think to the serious student of ancient Mediterranean history but not exactly light reading at times.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 1 out of 5]

Conçu comme le premier volume d’une « collection de grands albums sure le passé de la Méditerranée », « Les mémoires de la méditerranée : Préhistoire et antiquité » a été livré en 1969 à l’éditeur qui, mort en 1972, n’a pas réussi à le publier. La question qui se pose alors est que si « France Loisir » a pris la bonne décision de le publier finalement en 1998. Malgré le fait que le livre possède certains charmes, la réponse à mon avis est que non.
La lecture plait. Braudel est un maitre de la langue française. Ses descriptions sur la flore, la faune, la géographie et le climat de la méditerranée à l’ère préhistoriques sont superbes. Braudel fait des commentaires très intéressant sur des auteurs antiques (Hérodote, Polybe, etc.) et modernes (Nietzsche, Giraudoux, etc.). Finalement il réussit assez bien à décrire l’état de la longue durée et la conjoncture de la méditerranée à la veille de l’ère historique quand l’on appelle généralement l’antiquité.
Pendant le XIIe et XIIe siècles avant J.-C. quatre catastrophes ont lieu : (1) la chute de l’Empire hittite; (2) la destruction des palais de mycéniens; (3) l’invasion de l’Égypte pharaonique par les peuples de la mer; et (4) le début d’une grande sècheresse. En même temps les langues écrites font leur apparition début et on commence à fabriquer des armes avec le fer. La méditerranée va alors passer à travers un « moyen âge » antique de quatre siècles. Au XVIIe siècle avant J.-C., commence une « renaissance » marquée par les cités-états (Athènes, Sparte, etc.) et les premières grande œuvres littéraires et philosophiques de notre culture.
Le problème avec le livre vient du fait que la première moitié du livre ne s’accorde pas avec la deuxième. Une fois que l’époque préhistorique est terminée, Braudel ne consulte plus les études archéologiques. Ce qu’il écrit sur l’antiquité est basé uniquement sur les textes des historiens de l’antiquité. Braudel ne tient absolument pas compte des études archéologiques pour l’antiquité. Le résultat est que les sections sur la préhistoire présentent bien la longue durée tandis que ses sections sur l’antiquité présentent l’histoire événementielle. Avec un début prometteur, « Les mémoires de la méditerranée : Préhistoire et antiquité » déçoit énormément dans les derniers chapitres.

[ExtraGravy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Fernand Braudel. He's my favorite historian.

This book covered a dizzying amount of time with the warmth and clarity that I expect from Braudel. It didn't have the depth of details as his other books but this was more of a presentation of large movements of history up from the start, he starts way way back, to the beginning of Byzantium.

This book was written as the first volume of a larger project but was cancelled before volume two was written, which is why the conclusion feels abrupt. Its not a normal Braudel book but I really enjoyed it and it really provided a great vision to go with my current studies.

Recommended to those studying something in this time period as its great for context and as always the writing is lovely.

[Tiredstars · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a bit apprehensive reading this book. Braudel is one of the most famous historians of the 20th century, but only among other historians and intellectuals. And he's French. Does this translate as: technical, advanced, hard to read?

Fortunately not; in fact, The Mediterranean in the Ancient World is clear and easy to read, and would probably be readable even if you didn't know anything about the subject. It also communicates its central approach very well.

This approach is to look for the long-term factors shaping history. Braudel finds them primarily in geography, along with trade and, to a lesser extent, technology. He starts with a description of the geography and climate: the precarious fertile zones between mountain and sea, the exceptionalism of Egypt, the strategic location of Italy and Sicily, the steppes that sometimes overflowed with people.

At the centre of all but the very early history, the Mediterranean sea functions as a conduit for goods and people. Trade ran linked the developed and undeveloped poles. Craft goods, settlers and violence flowed one way, slaves, raw materials, precious stones and metals the other.

This tied the Mediterranean together, so that upheaval in Sumer was mirrored in Egypt, and Greeks went on risky colonisation missions to try and gain a foothold in the West. At first, trade ran primarily between Sumer and Egypt, through the Levant, and from the hinterlands of Armenia and Upper Egypt. As seafaring became more developed, Crete, Greece and more of the North African coast started to be accessible to the great empires.

By the height of the Hellenistic period, the centre of gravity was swinging towards the West. Sicily became the key to power. This may explain the crazy decision of the Athenians to invade the island in the middle of their war with the Spartans. Carthage, Greece and Rome battled for the island. Rome's greater manpower, based on its superior agricultural situation, allowed it to weather defeats by Carthage. When Rome took control of the seas and of Sicily, the downfall of Carthage was inevitable.

The Roman Empire saw the height of the Mediterranean system, as well as its limits. The Empire hit its limits as it tried to expand too far from the sea. In the North and East it met peoples it did not properly understand and who could not easily be brought into its system. In the end it was left, like its predecessors, trying to weather the inflows of people from these border regions.

I've two criticisms of the book. First, some quantitative information would have been very useful. I understand the massive problems of getting this information, but how can the importance of trade be judged without knowing how much was traded? How many ships would go from Tyre to distant Spain? Was an inhabitant of Etrusca ever likely to see a Cretan pot? Was trade and capacity large enough to provide basic food for people if their own crops failed? (By the 7th century Athens was shipping grain from Scythia, and probably feeding itself largely on imports when its hinterland was ravaged by the Spartans.)

Second, in those periods where trade was limited to high value goods, how did trade disruptions translate into social disruptions? My assumption is that hierarchies and alliances were cemented with gifts of status goods, but Braudel doesn't make it explicit.

Still, it's rare to find a book that is readable, informative and a good introduction to a theoretical approach. This is quite different from the familiar "kings & queens" history, and refreshing for it.

[Martin Zook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stuck in the winter from hell, I am diving into my Mediterranean shelf as I can't afford to be there.

Braudel is most widely known for expanding how historians practice their craft. He considers three times in his work: geologic, social, individual.

Greece and Rome don't enter the picture until the last two chapters. Most of the text is devoted to the preceding 15,000, or so, years.

He does an excellent job of tying Greece's emergence as a power in the Middle Sea environs to its geography and how that shaped the evolution of its colonizing city states. He does the same for the other groups around the Middle Sea during the eras covered.

His command of social events and trends helps integrate the geologic and individual times. He's able to surmise much of individual life from social events, including the emergence of powerful scribes with introduction of the alphabet technology.

One thing that greatly impresses me is how slowly things developed. Trends that now take years to develop globally, if that, took centuries to unfold.

This was originally published in the late '60s after he'd set the manuscript aside to work on other books. Despite its brevity and innovation, it has proved a slow read for me, probably because of difficulty I have with ancient history.

But, it is well worth the effort and the best volume on ancient history in my limited reading experience in the field.

by Fernand Braudel

[Sinan Öner]

Akdeniz Tarihi ile ilgili Türkçe'de yayınlanmış az sayıdaki kitaplardan biri, müthiş bir araştırma, Fernand Braudel'in "Bellek ve Akdeniz: Tarihöncesi ve Antikçağ" kitabı! Braudel, doçentlik Tezi olarak yazdığı yaklaşık bin sayfalık "2. Felipe Dönemi'nde Akdeniz ve Akdeniz Dünyası" kitabı ile Türkiye'de çok okunmuş, ünlenmiş bir Tarihçidir. Fernand Braudel, Akdeniz Tarihi ile ilgili araştırmalarını Akdeniz Tarihi'nin "tarihöncesi" ve "antikçağ" dönemleri ile ilgili de derinleştirmiş, geliştirmiş ve bu kitabı yazmış! Fernand Braudel, "modern Avrupa"nın bir Tarihçisi olarak da "Maddî Uygarlık ve Kapitalizm" başlıklı üç ciltlik tarih kitabında, Akdeniz kentleri ile ilgili araştırmalarından edindiği bilgileri de kullanmıştı. Metis Yayınları'nın yayınladığı "Bellek ve Akdeniz: Tarihöncesi ve Antikçağ" kitabı ile, Fernand Braudel'i Türkçe'de yeniden okumak, yeniden anlamak ve yeniden bir "Braudel Kitaplığı" içinde yaşamak olası, okurları için harika bir şans!

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Braudel is one of the few writers who intimidates me: his reputation is so towering, and his major works are so dense, that I’ve hesitated to read more than short excerpts of his writings. Yet my progress through the ‘Penguin History of Europe’ led me to seek more analysis of the ancient Mediterranean, and I found this unfinished book by the great historian.

I am pleased to say that it is a wonderful book, a delightful and approachable sample of Braudel’s much-vaunted historical method that I devoured in a single week.

Famous for his idea of the ‘longue dureé’ — the division of history into three overlapping and intersecting concurrent timeframes — Braudel applies it here across the entire Mediterranean zone from distant geological time up to the decline of the Western Roman Empire. Of course, an epoch this extensive cannot cover every detail or treat each civilization to the full extent it deserves, but Braudel gracefully skims across the eons, explaining and analyzing the key episodes and interludes throughout.

His method is famous for bringing natural history and geography into history, which is fairly commonplace now but was revolutionary in his time. Here, the variegated climate and topography of the region form a persistent backdrop that shapes (but does not necessarily *determine*) the options available to each civilization.

For example, Egypt and Mesopotamia were both hydrological civilizations born from their respective rivers. Yet there is a key difference that is often overlooked: the Nile floods regularly and predictably, while the Tigris/Euphrates are irregular and unpredictable. The former tends to flood and recede seasonally, leaving a rich and fertile zone of soil behind, while the latter rivers meander and break course suddenly. This difference played a key role in the histories of each Mediterranean subregion: Egypt had simply to predict flooding and plant accordingly, while Mesopotamian kingdoms had to engage in large scale engineering to make use of each river.

Braudel observes that the Mediterranean is an irregular patchwork of mountainous zones and small, disconnected fertile plains. I was surprised to learn how hostile it is to human civilization: the fertile and tranquil Mediterranean that we picture is a product of millennia of human effort and ingenuity. The mountains have long harbored ‘wild’ peoples, reservoirs of what was once called barbarism. These people would regular raid the plain cities below them, sometimes conquering and controlling them — or even founding new empires. This pattern has caused Mediterranean history to be remarkably fractious and turbulent. The only time that the entire sea has been under the control of a single civilization was during the centuries of the Roman Empire — nobody before or since has accomplished that feat.

There is far more here than I can cover in a review, but one point I want to emphasize is the warmth of Braudel’s voice. Sadly, I can’t read French, but his tone in translation is just wonderful; you really sense that you are in the hands of a master. Braudel is not afraid to interject his own opinion, sometimes castigating a historical figure (he does not like Alexander) or championing an underappreciated people (Minoans, Carthaginians). He weighs in on the debates, stating why he feels that one explanation is more likely than another. Most happily, he regularly shows the incredibly continuity of the Mediterranean across time; for example, showing how ship design and naval warfare were remarkably alike between the Ancient Greek/Phoenician period and the Venetian Empire two millennia later, or how certain farming patterns developed by the Etruscans persisted into the 19th century.

One caveat: this book was written in the 1960s and much new evidence, particularly in archeology, has come to light since. The particular edition that I read helpfully includes endnotes by two current scholars that explain where Braudel (or his evidence at the time) were incorrect. But overall, the corrections are pretty minor.

The advantages of the book are worth overlooking whatever minor points have been superseded. Braudel’s method reframes your thinking, helping you see deeper connections between regions or timescales and providing a new method for interpreting the world. I find myself looking out the window at the dry mountains of Southern California, reflecting on the precarious civilization that we’ve built, perched at the arid edge of the continent thanks to immense feats of hydrological engineering, which we are now struggling to maintain in the face of both infrastructural decay and a shifting environment. In light of current events, I reflect on the ongoing disruption of preexisting trade networks across the Pacific Rim — a recurring theme in the ancient Mediterranean world — and wonder how they will factor into our own ‘longue dureé’ if they continue.

This is exactly the type of history that I love: detailed yet sweeping, analytical but not deterministic, opinionated but not dogmatic. Too many history books now are written by timid academics or facile popularizers; Braudel shows you how to do it right. This short, minor work of Braudel has finally given me courage to tackle his two masterpieces — and indeed leaves me champing at the bit to begin!

[Anıl Karzek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Braudel efendimiz hazretlerinin her eserini sindire sindire okumak gerekir. Bu eseri de devamı gelmesi gereken bir serinin tek kitabı olarak kalmış, bu yüzden de sonuç kısmı havada kalmıştır. Uzun uzun anlattığı Roma kısmında yalnızca 2 sayfada Hristiyanlık konusuna eğilmesi bundandır, bu da kitaptaki en çarpıcı eksikliktir.

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dense read chockablock with names and terms unfamiliar to folks who never took Western Civ A great Birdseye view of the early history of life as it developed around the Mediterranean so it gave me insights and perspectives but despite his enthusiasm it all began to blur after a while

[s · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic

[Marly · Rating 4 out of 5]

braudel clinches 4th place for fav historian! behind ep thompson and timothy mitchell. and benedict anderson. obviously

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eight chapters in this book cover the history of the Mediterranean from its geological origin in the Tethys Sea to the final stages of the Roman Empire (and the suggestion of things to come from Constantinople).

So one might expect a breathless and rushed survey. On the contrary, the pace is thoughtful, almost leisurely, made possible by the assumption that the reader already knows the names and places, and the wars, in this history.

No matter that I began this book knowing only the names, places, and wars described by Colleen McCullough in her fictional but well researched Masters of Rome series. With an ebook, Wikipedia is never far away, and I could fill in the gaps that caught my interest.

Braudel is a captivating writer and the translation from the French is so well done that the book reads as if it were written in English.
Only small numbers of people took the caravan routes which criss-crossed the deserts like so many slow sea-passages across the stony and sandy wastes of Africa and Asia….

We start by learning how the geography of the sea and surrounding lands shape history - mountainous and tectonically adtive areas to the north of the sea, desert to the south. Braudel does not cringe in the face of a long Paleolithic age -
The Paleolithic lasted a very long time indeed: 99 percent of human existence so far took place then.

but he jumps right in to the

countless ages when a mere split pebble with one or two cutting edges was the only implement….

Braudel takes us through the Neanderthals, who buried their dead, to the development of agriculture.

We then watch two civilizations emerge in parallel: Mesopotamia and Egypt, and how water - "boats on the rivers, ships on the sea" - shaped their very different social, economic, and political structures.

Part One of the book concludes with the collapse of the Bronze Age, with the advent of the mysterious Peoples of the Sea and with near-simultaneous catastrophes at many locations in the Mediterranean, including the battle of Troy.

Part Two covers material more familiar to someone of my background. The Phoenicians, the Etruscans, and finally the Greeks and the Romans.

Just as Braudel looked at the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians in parallel, so he treats Greek and Roman civilizations in parallel, even though they developed consecutively, not simultaneously. Fascinating insights into how the city-states of Greece fostered the development of democracy as well as science. How the engineering feats of the Romans fostered Pax Romana.

This book provides precisely the foundation I need to begin studying the history of the region where I now live (Sicily). It is one I expect to return to as I read and learn about specific events - return to for perspective of history and for the pleasure of the language.

Highly recommended for its readable and remarkable view of the Mediterranean story.

[Cem Yüksel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Braudel, Akdeniz’i en iyi anlatan tarihçilerden birisi olarak ölümünden sonra basılan , belki devamını yazmayı planladığı için sonu biraz arkası var şeklinde biten bu kitapta , Akdeniz’in tarih öncesini ve antik çağı yazmış. . Ur’dan Kalde’ye , Alacahöyük’ten Capitol’e, Knossos’tan Biblos’a, Kenan’dan Keltlere, Dor’lardan Hannibal’e , Stoacılardan Ugarit yazısına , neolitik köylerden Roma’nın ihtişamlı meydanlarına uzun bir tarihi ve kültürel değişimleri anlatıyor. . Akdeniz’in sularının farklı yerlerdeki değişikliği gibi , kimi zaman şarap rengi kimi zaman turkuaz bir renk cümbüşünü andıran , bu iç denizin yarattığı kadim ve elden ele geçen uygarlığı okumak keyifli.

[Pinar G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Braudel'in cok kisaltilmis Turkce cevirisi. Bence daha da iyi olmus, cunku Roma'nin kurulis kisimlari biraz icimi baydi. Ama bu kadar oz ve can alici bir sekilde yazilmis bir kitaba ne desem az. Super

[Emanuela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inizialmente pensavo di leggere solo la parte riguardante la preistoria ma, avanzando nella lettura, mi piaceva così tanto lo schema narrativo che sono arrivata alla fine, comprese la civiltà greca e romana.

Il libro è un po' datato ed è stato pubblicato postumo. Alcune note del curatore aggiornano un po' più avanti le novità scientifiche archeologiche delle scoperte successivamente alla morte dell'autore. Queste sono però dettagli che non inficiano il pregevole lavoro che consiste nel dare una visione dinamica e relazionale dei diversi popoli che si affacciavano sul Mediterraneo dalla preistoria in poi.
Per l'autore il confine tra preistoria e storia è diverso dalla scansione classica: paleolitico neolitico, età del bronzo, in quanto, pur non essendo in presenza della scrittura, i reperti archeologici sono documenti altrettanto importanti e rappresentativi di civiltà.
In ogni caso, la visione della nascita della/e civiltà che rende questo libro è globale e tiene conto dell'evoluzione delle aree geografiche avvenute in tempi diversi e maturata proprio per i contatti che avvenivano man mano sempre più frequenti via mare.

Una curiosità: Braudel sembra avercela a morte con Alessandro Magno perché, a suo parere, avrebbe dovuto colonizzare l'occidente e fare in modo che la cultura greca si espandesse direttamente a ovest (Roma compresa) anziché verso est, dove, dopo la sua morte, è stata praticamente inutile.

Consigliatissimo perché è un gran bel racconto.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The plurality outweighs the singular. There are ten, twenty or a hundred Mediterraneans, each one subdivided in turn." (14)

"F or such freedom of communication to exist, a number of conditions had to be fulfilled: above all, as noted earlier, a favorable economic climate, the presence of communities that were both prosperous and acquisitive, and an efficient network of international exchange. Lastly, encouraged by the favorable context, there was a new spirit of curiosity, quickly verging on an obsession with everything that was foreign... What really matters is that an extraordinary capacity for comparatively rapid cultural diffusion had emerged in a world where shipping was still and adventure."(127-8)

"The prosperity of Phoenicia thus depended on long sea voyages. ... Both the voyage to Tartessos [in Spain] and that to America [in the sixteenth century] implied the existence of cities with rich capital resources, capable of waiting years for a return, and profits proportional to the immense investment of time. In both cases, it was silver ... which allowed the miracle to take place. A great deal of Spanish silver must have been circulating, because in Egypt the gold:silver exchange rate went from 1:2 to 1:13!" (187-8)

"[T]he phalanx had introduced the peasant to political society, and the oar had broad in the thetes, previously more or less untouchables. If Athens adopted these new methods it was perhaps a sign that they were irresistible." (239)

[Roger Burk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this much less engaging than the other works of this famous French social historian. Maybe that's because it was not completed. It was written in 1969 to be the first volume of a series on the history of the Mediterranean that was never carried through. The book was finally published in the 1990s after the author's death. It has no conclusion, and many details of prehistory have been revised by later discoveries. (Footnotes in this edition bring things up to the state of knowledge in 2000.) It covers prehistory through Roman times, but it is more a meditation than a description. It seems to assume much background knowledge in the reader, name-drops important sites, gives quotes without attribution, and presents many throwaway assertions that need a lot more backing. For instance, Braudel notes that ancient Greek culture disappeared from the Middle East after the Arab conquest, despite 1000 years of history there. He says that shows that conquerors cannot impose their culture and have it stick on foreign soil. But ancient Greek culture disappeared in Greece, too, so I think it shows that conquerors have to be more thorough and ruthless than the Greeks were.

[Pavuluzza Gnucca · Rating 4 out of 5]

L'approccio di lunga durata di Braudel ci permette di cogliere con uno sguardo unico, di insieme, quella che è stata la preistoria, l'archeologia, la geografia del Mediterraneo, dal Paleolotico fino alla creazione di Bisanzio.
L'impresa per il lettore non è di poco conto, i richiami storici, letterari e artistici sono molteplici e a tratti difficili da capire per i non addetti ai lavori.
D'altro canto però l'attenzione ai processi storici di lunga durata permette di sorvolare i particolari della storia e di leggerla attraverso i suoi grandi momenti: le migrazioni, la diffusione della ceramica e del ferro, l'uso delle imbarcazioni, il ruolo del commercio. Ricostruita in quest'ottica, anche l'eccezionalità della cultura greca e di quella romana assume un ruolo più dimensionato, che non siamo culturalmente abituati a riconoscere. In quest'ottica entrambe le civiltà di riferimento dell'Europa di oggi risultano tributarie di dinamiche e popoli che le hanno precedute.
Una bella sfida di lettura.

[Cihan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A splendid account of the Mediterranean history stretching from the Stone Age to the late Roman Empire. With the perspective of “longue durée”, Braudel gives a brilliant account of the numerous civilisations that have flourished in the region over the millennia while keeping the reader interested. The various connections between geographical boundaries and limitations and the development of different cultures was very clearly depicted with detailed descriptions of the landscapes and locational attributes. Braudel was articulate yet appealing to the common reader in explaining differences between civilisations in view of natural and cultural factors. I was really impressed by the sheer amount of short but to the point analyses about Egypt, Mesopotamia, Hittite, Carthage, Greece, Rome, and other subjects in society, religion, manufacture, economy, and agriculture. There is so much interesting information in the chapters that tempts the reader to study each era and civilisation deeper. I recommend this book to everyone interested in history in general.

[Don Dealga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not Braudel's finest work! It's his enjoyable jaunt through the early history of the Mediterranean region. More personal than some of his other more famous works, less driven by his annales approach, it is an enjoyable lighter work focussing on an earlier period of history than that covered in his magna opera (The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II; Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century: The Structures of Everyday Life). Some of his insights and theories on the history and peoples of the ancient Med have been overtaken by subsequent findings and archaelogical work. However, none of this should detract from the astounding historical knowledge and imagination of one of the greatest of European scholars in this field.

[Aykut Karabay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diğer Braudel eserleri gibi muhteşem bir kitap. Braudel “Bellek ve Akdeniz’de “ Tarihöncesi çağlardan Roma dönemine kadar Akdeniz üzerinden enfes bir tarih anlatısı sunuyor. Tabii bunu yaparken Annales ekolünün tarih sistemini kullanarak Akdeniz’in; medeniyetleri, coğrafyası, topoğrafyası, canlıları, insanın oluşumu ve evrimi, sosyolojisi, siyasi, askeri ve toplumsal tarihi, sanatı... gibi Farklı bilim dallarını bir araya getirip, bağlantılandırıyor. Özellikle Akdeniz’in Doğu - Batı medeniyetlerinin kültürel alış-veriş ve diyaloglarında kilit önemde olduğunu, Akdeniz’in küresel dünyadaki önemini vurguluyor.

[Rob Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a bit of an ancient history buff and have read numerous books on the various states that rimmed the Mediterranean Sea. What this book does is put them all in the context of the Mediterranean and its trade routes. It concentrates on those states that sailed upon the sea rather than just rimmed it. This provides a perspective and cohesion not found in individual histories. Along with its historical renderings, is an almost poetic view of the sea itself. If you are a student of history, this book is a must.

[Cut Meurah Rahman · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to know more about old age in the Mediterranean, I recommend reading this book. Braudel was a tremendous French historian. He brought us traveling time by time, beginning Prehistoric time to the late Roman empire. Unfortunately, this book had written by Braudel in 1964, which is a year before he died, so I can say that this book can't reach new information that already had in modern time.

[Muzaffer Arıner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Akdeniz in oluşumundan, insanlık tarihine ve doğu Roma imparatorluğuna kadar toplumları, uygarlıkları zaman tünelinden geçer gibi bir arada bulabileceğiniz bir eser.
Eğer yazar eserin devamını yazabilse ve genel bir toparlama yapabilseydi çok daha güzel olurdu.
Bu arada Roma imparatorluğu için yazılanlar kadar Ege ve o bölgedeki siteler şehirler ve yaşam için de ayrılsa daha tatmin edici olurdu.

[Federica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ormai un po' datato ma comunque carino, più consigliato per chi è digiuno di storia che non per chi la mastica. Una nota sull'edizione in sé: traduzione che mi lascia un po' perplessa perché troppo colloquiale in alcuni passaggi e c'è un errore di stampa (venti pagine ripetute). Forse avrebbe richiesto un po' più di attenzione vista comunque la natura rilevante del volume nell'ambito della ricerca sulla storia del Mediterraneo