Rob,
     According to Pirenne, the low point of European monetary history was after the Moorish conquest of Spain, with Charlemagne partly countering this with his creation of the livre, valued initially at a pound of silver (later taken to England as the pound sterling).  Of course, the attacks and depradations by the Vikings, along with the disuputes among Charlemagne's heirs would bring Europe to its demographic and broader economic low point in the 10th century.  

Regarding Braudel, I do not see what relevance the accuracy or lack thereof, much less who was funding him, has to do with his discussions of European economic and demographic history.

The other signal difference between Europe and the Muslim world in the 15th century, was the invention and adoption of the printing press in Europe.  Many have argued that Ottoman resistance to adopting it was both materially as well as symbolically at the heart of how and why Christian Europe would surge ahead of the Muslim Ottoman Empire eventually, even if in 1453, the Ottomans had the superior military technology when they conquered Constantinople.

Barkley

-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rob Tye
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 10:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] risk and Far East philosophy/economics

Dear Prof. Rosser

<<The 15th (century) saw the flowering of the Renaissance in Italy>>

I feel this stands in need of clarification.  Spufford seems to be correct in fixing a low point in pan-European monetary history in the exact year 1464, when coin issue came to a standstill almost everywhere, Venice and Milan included.  Trade stopped, and banks failed even in Florence.  The recovery, soon after in the 1470's, likewise was Europe wide.  Italy stood at the hub of these events but was not disconnected from the rest.

<<Braudel probably providing the best account of all that>>

I would not comment on those specific passages in Braudel, but I like to expand on my earlier negative comments on his work, as follows.  In passages I mentioned earlier, in his Capitalism and Material Life Braudel makes a general summary of the early modern Indian economy which is wrong, and preposterously so.  I spent a good part of the 1980's attempting to publish the necessary refutation of his simplistic, counterfactual bullionist approach, with no success what so ever.  It seemed no one wanted to see criticism of Braudel in print.  In the 1990's I abandoned historical research altogether for a good while, to investigate instead the background to Braudel's work.  At that time it was easy to track the many somewhat political affiliations his patron Lucien Febvre had forged in the murky worlds of interwar France and Cold War USA.  But it was not until 2002 I think, that confirmation began to appear in print that the large donations made to Braudel's academic institution by the Ford Foundation under McGeorge Bundy were made with regard to his political rather than intellectual value.
 Nor did I discover until then that the syllabus of Braudel's Maison des Sciences de l'Homme was co-written with Paul Lazarsfeld

I corresponded with Wallerstein (among many others) about 20 years back,.
asking how Braudel could make such a blunder, and got the reply that Braudel did not know much about India.  But is it reasonable to suppose that a man described as "one of the greatest of the modern historians", could go to print with work that would disgrace a secondary school essay, because he did not know any better?

Sincerely

Rob Tye, York, UK