The Wheels of Commerce: v. 2 (Civilization & capitalism 1400-1800) - Softcover

In the three fascinating volumes which make up 'Civilization and Capitalism', Fernand Braudel, indisputably the greatest of living historians, offers nothing less than an economic and social history of the world from the Middle Ages to the industrial Revolution. And what he offers is, like everything he writes, entirely new.

In this volume he turns his attention to the markets and exchanges that, from the start, have been the real motors of change. Pedlar's merchants, fairs, market stalls, the first stock exchanges provide the human and economic subject matter. Out of this world of bargaining and bustle, of risk and disaster, of enormous wealth and dizzying success, emerges the beginning of the economic world we see around us.

"Fernand Braudel is a mega-historian, a man of vast concepts and almost unlimited sweep... These two volumes are a remarkable synthesis of the latest research in economic and social history, and set out an encyclopaedic array of facts in a manner sufficiently attractive to command the wide readership they deserve"
JOHN KENYON, 'Observer'

"Few would disagree that Braudel is the greatest of Europe's historians"
SIR JOHN PLUMB, 'The Times'

"It is a work to browse, to read and to plunder for its matchless life and unfailing zest as much as for its global scope and incomparable audacity"
DAVID CANNADINE, 'Sunday Times'