Translation of: La Mediterranee et le monde mediterraneen a l'epoque de Philippe II.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [1245]-1313) and indexes.

Pt. One : The role of the environment -- The Peninsulas: mountains, plateaux, and plains -- 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? -- Plateaux, hills, and foothills -- The high plains -- A hillside civilization -- The hills -- 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 -- Transhumance and nomadism -- Transhumance -- Nomadism, an order way of life -- Transchumance 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 -- The heart of the Mediterranean : seas and coasts -- The plains of the sea -- Costal 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 -- Mainland coastlines -- The peoples of the sea -- Weaknesses of the maritime regions -- The big cities -- The changing fortunes of maritime regions -- 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.

Boundaries : the greater Mediterranean -- A Mediterranean of historical dimensions -- 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 -- 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 -- The Atlantic ocean -- Several Atlantics -- The Atlantic learns from the Mediterranean -- The Atlantic destiny in the sixteeth century -- A late decline -- The Mediterranean as a physical unit : climate and history -- The unity of the climate -- The Atlantic and the Sahara -- A homogeneous climate -- Drought : the scourge of the Mediterranean -- 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 -- Has the climate changed since the sixteenth century? -- Supplementary note -- The Mediterranean as a human unit : Communications and cities -- 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 -- 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 -- Urban functions -- Towns and roads -- A meeting place for different transport routes -- From roads to banking -- Urban cycle and decline -- A very incomplete typology -- 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 -- pt. two : Collective destinies and general trends -- Economies : the measure of the century -- 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 -- 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 -- 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?

Economies : precious metals, money, and prices -- The Mediterraneon 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 -- American sliver -- 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 -- The rise in prices -- Contemporary complaints -- Was American treasure responsible? -- Some arguments for and against American responsibility wages -- Income from land -- Banks and inflation -- The 'industrialists' -- States and the price rise -- The dwindling of American treasure -- Devalued currency and false currency -- Three ages of metal -- Economies : trade and transport -- 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 -- Equilibrium and crisis in the Mediterranean gain 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 crises : 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 cries -- Trade and transport : The sailing ships of the Atlantic -- 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) -- 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.