Reviews

• 満足です。

  きれいな本でした。内容はもともとはフランス語からの英訳ですが、的確な訳だと思い、満足しています。

• One of the best books I will ever read

  Wow, by far one of the best books that I have ever read. I usually do not like history because I prefer to be more proactive and immersed in today's world. But the clarity on our society's current situation that this book gives by examining the roots of the movement to capitalism is incredible and was so worth my time that I had to take a week's vacation off work in order to make sure that I could focus to read this. The writing conveys only one thing - complete clarity into the world today. It is an incredible opus; I loved it. There is no easy answer to the challenges we humans face in organizing and creating a shared activity to enable the greatest overall productivity and happiness. The evolution of humanity during the early Renaissance years provides the explanation for where and why we are organized in this way today. Understanding this time in this way (through the lens of the economics of that time period) gives a much greater appreciation for the world today that we have constructed. The most core problems of humanity - social mobility, equitable distribution of resources, stability, and collective cooperation, have never (and may never) become solvable. This book explains these dynamics so eloquently that I wish I had time to read it again and again - much like a great adventure novel that as a kid you just wished would never end and felt a real loss once it did and you had to re-emerge into the real world around you. Braudel is phenomenal in his depth of understanding about how society of the 15-18th centuries operated. I can't recommend it more highly.

• Braudel: The Wheels of Commerce

  A great achievement of factual collation across a broad chronological and socio-economic sphere. However, the plethora of detail sometimes overwhelms the overarching theme of the development of capitalism. There are some fascinating narratives of micro-history and glimpses into the minds and actions of proto-capitalists, as well as the societies within which they functioned - France and Spain, as well as England and Holland and further afield in Asia and the New World. It's interesting to note that the fortunes from early colonies were usually made not by the colonial producers but by the merchants and pre-capitalist financiers parlaying through exchange products for which they paid little into European currency worth multiple times the cost price. An explanation, perhaps, of how modern-day developed countries still manage to cream off the surplus value of countries rich in commodities, leaving poverty and sometimes famine in the midst of plenty. Also interesting to note that types of joint stock company (or associations) developed in trading even before the creation of the Muscovy Company in 1535,as pre-capitalism came into its own in large-scale, high risk overseas ventures needing large initial outlay and the ability to tolerate long waits until their ships literally "came in". The volume is a treasury of such details, although it is difficult to synthesize them into a final conclusion. The weakest spot is the treatment of the Far East tacke don at the end, which relies heavily on Norman Jacobs and some rather sparse evidential material to draw some sweeping extrapolations and comparisons with developments in Europe - some seductive correlations, unfortunately not supported by the factual underpinning. Inevitably there are longueurs. Nevertheless, it is well worth the effort to persevere and - as said elsewhere, the journey is relieved by many fine illustrations. (If only some of them could have been in colour.) A sometimes hard slog, but a magnificent work of scholarship that should long endure.

• Excellent reference

  Excellent reference Arrived in good condition

• Good Work

  There were a few notes but the book was basically in fine shape at a good price. Everything I expected.

• Complex history par excellence

  By far the deepest perspective into the complex and very long transition from feudalism to capitalism I've read. Frustrating to those of us, and I admit I'm one, who'd prefer a simpler easier hermeneutic.

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