The great sea : a human history of the Mediterranean / David Abulafia.

Originally published: London: Allen Lane, 2011.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : A sea with many names -- Part 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 -- Part 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 -- Part 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 -- Part 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 -- Part 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. David Abulafia.is Professor of Mediterranean History at Cambridge University (Publisher's note).