Author:Fernand Braudel,Siân Reynolds
This general reader's history of the ancient mediterranean combines a thorough grasp of the scholarship of the day with an great historian's gift for imaginative reconstruction and inspired analogy. Extensive notes allow the reader to appreciate thestate of scholarship at the time of writing, the scale and breadth of Braudel's learning and the points where orthodoxy has changed, sometimes vindicating Braudel, sometimes proving him wrong. Above all the book offers us the chance to situate Braudel's mediterranean, born of a lifetime's love and knowledge, more clearly in the climates of the sea's history.
That Green is completely master of his material is proved by Concluding...which has been acclaimed as his masterpiece. From the point of view of pure technique the claim is just. It is a marvellously well written book
—— John DavenportPeculiar and beautiful... I love Concluding for the glorious, syntax-straining sentences that flare out of nowhere, and are full of those same wild energies
—— Lars Iyer , New StatesmanHe has found in Concluding a theme whose sinister beauty exquisitely fits his equivocal powers, and he has handled it with care and inspiration
—— George Painter , ListenerHe interprets better than any other contemporary writer the relationship of the individual to the chaos of our time
—— Robert Kee , SpectatorRichly documented and eloquent... challenges popular myths of the English and puts the record straight.
—— Roy Porter , The Times Literary SupplementIt is difficult to do justice to the scope and intelligence of this marvellous account of a much understood age.
—— Mark Archer , Financial TimesThe most comprehensive look at the work of these intrepid sailors . . . A celebration of their ingenuity and valor
—— Baltimore SunReads like an adventure novel, but it's all to real
—— Seyour M. Hersh, author of The Dark Side of CamelotThe veterans of the 'Silent Service' are silent no more
—— John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy , Wall Street Journal