Beyond the Northern Invasion: The Mediterranean in the Seventeenth Century

Braudel's magisterial work, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, is a study of the sixteenth century, but he does, nevertheless, look forward to the following century, during which he posits a 'Northern Invasion'. The northern invasion argument asserts that the Dutch, the English and the French swarmed into the Mediterranean with their superior sailing ships early in the seventeenth century, and seized control of the sea's commercial, financial and maritime life.1 This picture has been endorsed by many others, and is easily the dominant model for the Mediterranean world in the seventeenth century.2