The Great Sea : A Human History of the Mediterranean

Connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Mediterranean Sea has been for millennia the place where religions, economies, and political systems met, clashed, influenced and absorbed one another. In this brilliant and expansive book, David Abulafia offers a fresh perspective by focusing on the sea itself: its practical importance for transport and sustenance; its dynamic role in the rise and fall of empires; and the remarkable cast of characters-sailors, merchants, migrants, pirates, pilgrims-who have crossed and re-crossed it. Ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, The Great Sea is above all a history of human interaction. Interweaving major political and naval developments with the ebb and flow of trade, Abulafia explores how commercial competition in the Mediterranean created both rivalries and partnerships, with merchants acting as intermediaries between cultures, trading goods that were as exotic on one side of the sea as they were commonplace on the other. He stresses the remarkable ability of Mediterranean cultures to uphold the civilizing ideal of convivencia, "living together." Now available in paperback, The Great Sea is the definitive account of perhaps the most vibrant theater of human interaction in history.
Situated at the intersection of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Mediterranean Sea has been for millenia the place where religions, economies, and political systems met, clashed, influenced and absorbed one another. David Abulafia offers a fresh perspective by focusing on the sea itself: its practical importance for transport and sustenance; its dynamic role in the rise and fall of empires; and the remarkable cast of characters--sailors, merchants, migrants, pirates, pilgrims--who have crossed and recrossed it.

Ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, The Great Sea is above all the history of human interaction across a region that has brought together many of the great civilizations of antiquity as well as the rival empires of medieval and modern times. Interweaving major political and naval developments with the ebb and flow of trade, Abulafia explores how commercial competition in the Mediterranean created both rivalries and partnerships, with merchants acting as intermediaries between cultures, trading goods that were as exotic on one side of the sea as they were commonplace on the other. He stresses the remarkable ability of Mediterranean cultures to uphold the civilizing ideal of convivencia, "living together," exemplified in medieval Spain, where Christian theologians studied Arabic texts with the help of Jewish and Muslim scholars, and traceable throughout the history of the region.

Brilliantly written and sweeping in its scope, The Great Sea is itself as varied and inclusive as the region it describes, covering everything from the Trojan War, the history of piracy, and the great naval battles between Carthage and Rome to the Jewish Diaspora into Hellenistic worlds, the rise of Islam, the Grand Tours of the 19th century, and mass tourism of the 20th. It is, in short, a magnum opus, the definitive account of perhaps the most vibrant theater of human interaction in history.

Pt. 1. The first Mediterranean, 22000 BC-1000 BC. Isolation and insulation, 22000 BC-3000 BC Copper and bronze, 3000 BC-1500 BC Merchants and heroes, 1500 BC-1250 BC Sea peoples and land peoples, 1250 BC-1100 BC Pt. 2. The second Mediterranean, 1000 BC-AD 600. The purple traders, 1000 BC-700 BC The heirs of Odysseus, 800 BC-550 BC The triumph of the Tyrrhenians, 800 BC-400 BC Towards the garden of the Hesperides, 1000 BC-400 BC Thalassocracies, 550 BC-400 BC The lighthouse of the Mediterranean, 350 BC-100 BC 'Carthage must be destroyed,' 400 BC-146 BC 'Our sea,' 146 BC-AD 150 Old and new faiths, AD 1-450 Dis-integration, 400-600 Pt. 3. The third Mediterranean, 600-1350. Mediterranean troughs, 600-900 Crossing the boundaries between Christendom and Islam, 900-1050 The great sea-change, 1000-1100 'The profit that God shall give,' 1100-1200 Ways across the sea, 1160-1185 The fall and rise of empires, 1130-1260 Merchants, mercenaries and missionaries, 1220-1300 Serrata closing, 1291-1350 Pt. 4. The fourth Mediterranean, 1350-1830. Would-be Roman emperors, 1350-1480 Transformations in the West, 1391-1500 Holy leagues and unholy alliances, 1500-1550 Akdeniz the battle for the White Sea, 1550-1571 Interlopers in the Mediterranean, 1571-1650 Diasporas in despair, 1560-1700 Encouragement to others, 1650-1780 The view through the Russian prism, 1760-1805 Deys, beys, and bashaws, 1800-1830 Pt. 5. The fifth Mediterranean, 1830-2010. Ever the twain shall meet, 1830-1900 The Greek and the unGreek, 1830-1920 Ottoman exit, 1900-1918 A tale of four and a half cities, 1900-1950 Mare nostrum again, 1918-1945 A fragmented Mediterranean, 1945-1990 The last Mediterranean, 1950-2010 Conclusion : Crossing the sea. For over three thousand years, the Mediterranean Sea has been one of the great centres of world civilisation. From the time of historical Troy until the middle of the nineteenth century, human activity here decisively shaped much of the course of world history. David Abulafia's The Great Sea is the first complete history of the Mediterranean from the erection of the mysterious temples on Malta around 3500 BC to the recent reinvention of the Mediterranean's shores as a tourist destination. Part of the argument of Abulafia's book is that the great port cities - Alexandria, Trieste and Salonika and many others - prospered in part because of their ability to allow many different peoples, religions and identities to co-exist within sometimes very confined spaces. He also brilliantly populates his history with identifiable individuals whose lives illustrate with great immediacy the wider developments he is describing. The Great Sea ranges stupendously across time and the whole extraordinary space of the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Jaffa, Venice to Alexandria. Rather than imposing a false unity on the sea and the teeming human activity it has sustained, the book emphasises diversity - ethnic, linguistic, religious and political. Anyone who reads it will leave it with their understanding of those societies and their histories enormously enriched. This text presents a complete history of the Mediterranean from the erection of the mysterious temples on Malta around 3500 BC to the recent reinvention of the Mediterranean's shores as a tourist destination Presents a history of human interaction and cultural relations in the Mediterranean Sea region, from prehistoric times to the present day.