The Mediterranean after Fernand Braudel

Abstract

The French historian Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) has been described as 'the greatest historian of the twentieth century'. His work The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II has been considered by many as a masterpiece. It illustrates Braudel's whole new historical vision and philosophy, with his new concepts of space and time seriously undermining traditional historiography. His success followed by the publications of the first and second editions of these two volumes and their English translation paved the way for an innovative history, revolutionising the historical method and history writing. The present dissertation endeavours to bring to light the extent Braudel's legacy has influenced historians and continues to do so right through the twenty-first century. It plans to do this by analysing a number of works written by different historians in the years following the publication of the Mediterranean. Four volumes have been chosen; they all focus on the Mediterranean region, although they vary in their approach and subject matter. A chapter is assigned to each of these books and are arranged in chronological order according to their date of publication. Chapter 2 explores Ernle Bradford's Mediterranean - Portrait of a Sea while chapter 3 discusses John Julius Norwich's book titled The Middle Sea. Chapter 4 and 5 are an analysis of two recent works - The Corrupting Sea, written by Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell and Mediterranean in History, edited by David Abulafia, who has succeeded in bringing together a strong team of leading historians on the subject. Initially, I had planned to devote a chapter on the hook Rethinking the Mediterranean edited by W.V. Harris. Since this volume is of a completely different nature from the other four, I thought it would be better to use it as an overall reference instead. When the present dissertation had reached an advanced stage, I came across Faruk Tabak's The Waning of the Mediterranean, 1550-1870. It would have been appropriate to include its review in this work; however, time and space precluded me from devoting a whole chapter to it.