Fernand Braudel is often regarded wrongly as a representative of the social scientific history. But, he was a thinker who sought to rise above the limitations of his time. He had sure instincts which led him in fact to question historiographical verities, and thereupon, sometimes explicitly, sometimes only implicitly, to indicate new ways out of old dilemmas. Braudel was a historian who drew from the archival research the materials to build a ‘histoire pensée’, and it will be in position of confrontation with the way in which the tradition of modern social science insulated, circumscribed the history. In order to understand and render comprehensible that, this study concentrates upon the critical relation that Braudel maintains with the tradition of modern social science, and upon the effect which he produced on this tradition. We will examine the ‘total history’ and the ‘longue durée’ of Braudel in the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world at the time of Philippe II and the Material Civilization, economy and capitalism, XVe-XVIIIe century, for clarify the problems which he raises and the ideas that he proposes at current time.

Fernand Braudel is often regarded wrongly as a representative of the social scientific history. But, he was a thinker who sought to rise above the limitations of his time. He had sure instincts which led him in fact to question historiographical verities, and thereupon, sometimes explicitly, sometimes only implicitly, to indicate new ways out of old dilemmas. Braudel was a historian who drew from the archival research the materials to build a ‘histoire pensée’, and it will be in position of confrontation with the way in which the tradition of modern social science insulated, circumscribed the history. In order to understand and render comprehensible that, this study concentrates upon the critical relation that Braudel maintains with the tradition of modern social science, and upon the effect which he produced on this tradition. We will examine the ‘total history’ and the ‘longue durée’ of Braudel in the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world at the time of Philippe II and the Material Civilization, economy and capitalism, XVe-XVIIIe century, for clarify the problems which he raises and the ideas that he proposes at current time.