introduction

Chapter 1: The Division of Space and Time: Europe

Space and Economy: The World Economy
The World Economy / The World Economy Has Always Existed / The Law of Tendency / The First Law: Space Changes Slowly /
Second Law: At the center is a dominant capitalist city / Second Law (continued): The city's ascendancy rotates /
Second Law (Last): The rule of cities is diverse. Third Law: The various regions form a hierarchy.
The Third Law (continued): Thünen's Zone / The Third Law (continued): The Spatial Diagram of the World Economy / The Third Law (continued): Does a Neutral Zone Exist? /
Third Law (Final): Envelope and Substructure

The World Economy: One Order Among Many
Economic Order and the International Division of Labor / States: Political Power, Economic Power / Empires and the World Economy / War in Each Sphere of the World Economy / Society and the World Economy /
The cultural order/world-economy analytical framework is clearly valid.

The division of time and the world economy
The Rhythm of Consonanceur / Waves and Ripple Space / Long-Term Trends / Solidarity Explaining the World Economy / Kondratiev Cycles and Long-Term Trends /
Can the long-term conjunctural cycle be explained? / Past and Present

Chapter 2: Europe's Old Economy, Ruled by Cities: Before and After Venice

Europe's first world-economy
European Expansion since the 11th Century / World Economy and Polarity / Nordic Space: The Rise of Bruges / Nordic Space: The Rise of the Hanseatic League /
The Opposite Pole: Italian Cities / Intermezzo: The Periodic Poems of Champagne / France's Missed Opportunity

Venice's belated ascendancy
Genoa vs. Venice / The Power of Venice / The World Economy Centered on Venice / Venice's Responsibility / The Gallere da Mercato / Venetian Capitalism / What About Labor?
Industrial Advantage? / The Turkic Threat

Portugal's Unexpected Success: From Venice to Antwerp
Traditional explanations / New explanations / Antwerp, the capital of the world created by external forces / Antwerp's stages of development / First leap, first disappointment /
Antwerp's Second Success / Industrial Leap / Antwerp's Originality

The Genoese Century: Towards a Restoration of Its Accurate Dimensions and Importance
"A Curtain of Barren Mountains" / Working Far from Home / A Game Like Acrobatics / Genoa's Careful Domination of Europe /
Causes of Genoa's Success / Genoa's Decline / Genoa's Survival / Rethinking the World Economy

Chapter 3: Europe's Old Economy, Dominated by Cities: Amsterdam

Dutch domestic economy
Small land, scarce natural resources / Agricultural achievements / High-voltage urban economy / Amsterdam / Diverse population / Fishing / The Dutch fleet /
Does the Dutch Federation have a "state"? / Little change in its internal structure / Taxes on the poor / Against other states /
Business is king

If you rule Europe, you rule the world.
The key takeaway was before 1585 / Rest of Europe and the Mediterranean / Netherlands vs. Portugal: Replacing the Opponent /
The cohesion of trade in the Dutch Empire

Success in Asia, failure in America
A Time of Struggle and Success / The Rise and Fall of the Dutch East India Company / Why It Failed in the 18th Century / Failure in the New World: The Limits of Dutch Success

Hegemony and Capitalism
In Amsterdam, warehouses rule everything / goods and credit / consignment trade / delivery trade / the fashion of the big money or the decline of capital /
Other Views: Away from Amsterdam / The Baltic Sea / France vs. the Netherlands: An Unequal Fight / England vs. the Netherlands /
Non-European: Malay Archipelago / Is generalization possible?

The Decline of Amsterdam
Crises: 1763, 1772–1773, 1780–1783 / Batavian Revolution

Chapter 4 National Market

Basic unit, upper unit
Different Types of Space / "State" Space and Markets / Even if the Nation-State is So, What About the National Market? / Domestic Customs / Opposition to A Priori Definitions / Territorial Economy and Urban Economy

Counting and recounting
Three variables and three sizes / Three ambiguous concepts / The scale and correlation of size / Public debt and GDP / Other ratios /
From Consumption to GDP / Frank Spooner's Calculation / The Obvious Continuity

France: A Victim of Its Own Enormity
Diversity and Unity / Natural Connections, Artificial Connections / It Was a Political Phenomenon First / Excess of Space / Paris and Lyon / Paris Wins /
The Dividing Line of Historical Space / The Rouen-Geneva Dividing Line: For and Against / The Border Zones on the Sea and the Continent / Cities of the “Other France” / The Interior /
The interior conquered by the frontier

Britain's commercial superiority
How Britain Became an Island / The Pound Sterling / London Created a National Market, and the National Market Created London /
How England Became Britain? / The Greatness of Britain and the Public Debt / From the Treaty of Versailles (1783) to the Treaty of Eden (1786) /
Statistics show the problem, but they don't solve it.

Chapter 5: The World and Europe: Domination and Resistance

America: The Biggest Prize
The vastness of America: conditions both favorable and unfavorable / local and national markets / successive kinds of dependence / America serving Europe /
America Against Europe / Industrial Struggle / British Colonies Find Freedom / Commercial Challenges and Competition / Colonial Management in Spain and Portugal /
Rethinking Spanish America / The Spanish Empire's Response / The Greatest Treasure / Neither Feudalism nor Capitalism?

Black Africa: Not Just Dominated from Outside
West Africa / An Isolated, Yet Accessible Continent / From the Coast to the Interior / Triangular Trade and Terms of Trade / The End of Slavery

Russia: One Independent World Economy
The Russian economy quickly returned to semi-independence / A strong state / Deepening dependence in Russia / Markets and the countryside / Town-level cities /
What Kind of World Economy? / Inventing Siberia / Vulnerability and Weakness / The Price of European Penetration

Turkic Empire
The Foundations of the World Economy / The Position of Europe / The World of Caravans / Long-Protected Maritime Space / Merchants Serving Turkey /
Economic and political decadence

Asia: The world's largest economy
The Fourth World Economy / India Conquered by Itself / Gold and Silver: A Sign of Strength or Weakness? / Entry by Force /
Supervisors, Branch Offices, Branch Offices, and Ship Managers / How to Understand the Deep History of Asia / Villages in India / Artisans and Industry /
The National Market / The Weight of the Mughal Empire / Political and Non-political Causes of the Decline of the Mughal Empire / The Decline of India in the 19th Century /
India and China in the Hyper-Global Economy / The Glory of Malacca / Asia's Shift to the Center of Gravity

Is a conclusion possible?

Chapter 6: Industrial Revolution and Growth

Useful comparison
Revolution: A Complex and Ambiguous Term / Looking Downstream: Today's Underdeveloped Countries / Looking Upstream: Failed Revolutions / Alexandria in Egypt /
Europe's First Industrial Revolution: Horses, Watermills, and Windmills in the 11th-13th Centuries / The Industrial Revolution in the Age of Agricola and Leonardo da Vinci /
John Neff and England's First Industrial Revolution, 1560–1640

The Industrial Revolution in Britain: A Sectoral Analysis
Most important factors: British agriculture / population growth / technology: an insufficient prerequisite / cotton is not "trivial" / the triumph of long-distance trade /
Increased domestic transport / slow evolution

Beyond the Industrial Revolution
The Many Diverse Growths / How to Explain Growth? / Division of Labor and Growth / Division of Labor: The End of the Pre-Lease System / Industrialists / The Sectoral Division of British Society /
Division of Labor and British Geography / Finance and Capitalism / What Role Did Consoncture Play? / Material Progress and the Standard of Living

Conclusion: History and Reality
Longevity / An All-Inclusive Society / Will Capitalism Survive? / Final Conclusion: Capitalism and the Market Economy

main
Biographical Index

A representative historian of the French Annales School, which led world historiography
Fernand Braudel, “The Pope of History”

In 20th century France, a movement arose to look at history from a new perspective.
Along with this movement, the 'Annales School' was born, centered around the academic journal 'Annales' co-founded by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch in 1929.
They argued that history should be interpreted based on society rather than politics, on groups rather than individuals, and on structures rather than chronologies.

Fernand Braudel was a second-generation scholar and representative scholar of the Annales School. He deepened the Annales School's perspective of "new history" and expanded the scope of history to include economic and social history.
Braudel wanted to look at the history of mankind as a whole rather than a fragmentary history.
To this end, he closely studied the daily lives of people, such as population changes, food, clothing, and shelter, and luxuries, which scholars of the time had overlooked.
Believing that the lifestyles of people over centuries ultimately shaped the world, he statistically analyzed and quantified the vast archives of ancient documents containing information on commerce and daily life.

Braudel believed that a solid 'structure' was created through the 'continuation' of small, trivial events repeated every day.
He is still called the 'godfather' of French history today, having gained insight into history and the driving force that changes the world through the structure that defines the basic aspects of people's lives and their limitations.

Material life of the pre-industrial era of the 15th to 18th centuries
A monumental masterpiece considered on a macro level

"Material Civilization and Capitalism," a masterpiece that has led the world's historiography, examines the past, present, and future of material civilization and capitalism through a detailed study of human society before industrialization.
This work, the product of decades of in-depth research into vast amounts of material, including ancient documents, pamphlets, and past and contemporary papers, comprehensively examines not only world historical events but also various fields such as economy, culture, geography, and society, capturing the dynamic flow of material civilization and capitalism.

Volume 1, "The Structure of Everyday Life," examines the framework of civilization created by everyday life by examining material culture, including objects, tools, everyday activities, currency, and cities.
It is on the basis of this material culture that economic activities such as peddlers, merchants, shops, markets, and regular markets arise.
Large corporations conduct remote trade, and exchanges emerge to handle international trading activities.
In Volume 2, "The World of Exchange," I trace the two realms of "market economy" and "capitalism," and attempt to structurally explain these two dynamic realms that build upon the material culture covered in Volume 1.
The market economy and capitalism are intertwined yet distinct and opposed to each other, and this paper examines what inequalities create this duality.
Volume 3, "Time of the World," examines the rise and decline of cities that exerted capitalist influence globally.
Cities such as Venice, Antwerp, Genoa, and Amsterdam took the lead in turn, national economies emerged in France and England, and England later dominated the world through the Industrial Revolution.

Praise poured in for this book

There is no denying that this book is full of detailed information and bold hypotheses… … It shows the endless variety of commercial possibilities that humans are capable of.
—Jonathan Spence, [New York Times Book Review]

The renowned French historian Fernand Braudel argues that we can gain a deeper understanding of history by studying how people ate and dressed, where they lived, and where they obtained their necessities and luxuries.
Braudel shows in detail how the great flow of history is created from small parts.
―Elizabeth Grossman, [Saturday Review]

This book is alive and breathing, not only with the author's long-standing scholarship and refined writing style, but also with his understanding of humanity and sharp metaphors for modern society.

― [Economist]

Fernand Braudel wanted to write a 'history closely related to humanity'.
He started a revolution.
He made the suffering of the 20th century a land of discovery.

― [La Croix]