This reissue of Fernand Braudel's great work brings the original back in print and looks at the Mediterranean world in the second half of the sixteenth century. The focus of Fernand Braudel's work is the Mediterranean world in the second half of the sixteenth century, but Braudel ranges back in history to the world of Odysseus and forward to our time, moving out from the Mediterranean area to the New World and other destinations of Mediterranean traders. Braudel's scope embraces the natural world and material life, economics, demography, politics, and diplomacy.