By examining in detail the material life of pre-industrial peoples around the world, Fernand Braudel significantly changed the way historians view their subject. Volume I describes food and drink, dress and housing, demography and family structure, energy and technology, money and credit, and the growth of towns.

Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) taught at the Collège de France and was a member of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. He is the author of The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, among other titles.

"To read Braudel on material life is to experience the past anew."—Paul Robinson, New York Times Book Review

"The noted French historian Fernand Braudel . . . argues convincingly that a meaningful understanding of history can be gained from studying how people ate and dressed, where they lived, and how they obtained necessities and luxuries. . . . Braudel succeeds in presenting a thorough picture of how the great trends of history were created by their smallest parts."—Elizabeth Grossman, Saturday Review