vol. II, pp. 237-239 are KEY to defining Braudel's project of defining what "capitalism" is and means, and what it means to search for the roots or typology of "capitalism" in the pre-industrial period (c. 1800). Indeed, astonishingly, though the word appears in the 1840s and in Proudhon, Marx never uses it; the word only gains currency after the Werner Sombert's use of it in 1902. Obviously, Braudel does not believe that a full-blown capitalism can be found in ancien régime societies; it only exists then on a narrow platform, surrounded by a vast sea of non-capitalist activity. Indeed, "capitalism was what it was (only) in relation to a non-capitalism of immense proportions", and not "in relation to new capitalist forms which were (only) to emerge in later times".
I don't deny that this book is difficult to read - not all of it is thrilling. But it is a book of such profound seriousness and depth that the interested reader will tackle it...