UC Santa Cruz | St. Antony’s College | Maison Française D’Oxford | Yale  | University of Washington

“Models of Mediterranean Modernity: The Perspective of the Longue Durée”

UCSC Emeriti lecture  (April 14, 2019)

This lecture provides a world historical perspective on the ways in which the Mediterranean (all of it, and not just some of it) became modern. I begin by asking:
“Is the modern Mediterranean one place, with a common history? Or several, riven by colonialism? Viewed from a global perspective, the Mediterranean region has enjoyed a common historical experience since 1400. Increasingly semi-peripheral with respect to the world capitalist system, and characterized by weak states, delayed or muffled class formation, agrarian backwardness and the persistence of pastoralism, the coming to modernity of the Mediterranean foreshadowed the historical experience of the Third World in its unity and diversity.