In 1969, Geoffrey Barraclough (as General Editor of the Thames & Hudson "Library of European Civilization" series) approached Brown with a view to commissioning a book on late antiquity - and Brown has since noted that it might well have been Barraclough who suggested "The World of Late Antiquity" as a title. At this point, Brown engaged increasingly with the work of Henri Pirenne – and also with that of the French Annales School, in particular Fernand Braudel. Their work, combined with the eastward shift in his interests, prompted Brown to think increasingly of the Mediterranean as "truly distinctive".