The Great Sea A Human History of the Mediterranean

by Abulafia, David

• ISBN13: 9780195323344
• ISBN10: 0195323343
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-10-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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, and absorbed one another. In The Great Sea David Abulafia gives a sweeping account of these grand exchanges and their effects on the rise and fall of empires through the ages. Mediterranean history has often been written as the history of the lands surrounding the sea, but Abulafia will focus his narrative on the stories of its transitory human inhabitants: the merchants, pirates, and war fleets who have sometimes gained control of the sea's exits and entrances-the Straits of Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, or the Ionian Sea-and patrolled the intervening waters to ensure that ships from rival empires or cities do not intrude. Other significant groups who have crossed back and forth include refugees, missionaries, and tourists--for example, the Jewish Diaspora that spread by sea into the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. And no history of the Mediterranean would be complete without telling of the numerous and more permanent peoples who made their homes in the many islands moored in the sea, from Sicily, the largest, to strategic dots such as the Spanish bases off Morocco, and the mass of tiny islands out of which Venice came to life. The Great Sea is above all the history of human interaction across a space that brought together many of the great civilizations of antiquity in a "grand marketplace for the exchange of goods and ideas."

Author Biography

David Abulafia is Professor of Mediterranean History at Cambridge University and the author of The Mediterranean in History.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xi
System of Transliteration and Dating	p. xvi
Preface	p. xvii
Introduction: A Sea with Many Names	p. xxiii
The First Mediterranean, 22000 bc-1ooo bc
Isolation and Insulation, 22000 Bc-3000 BC	p. 3
Copper and Bronze, 3000 BC-1500 BC	p. 15
Merchants and Heroes, 1500 BC-1250 BC	p. 29
Sea Peoples and Land Peoples, 1250 BC-11oo BC	p. 42
The Second Mediterranean, 1000 BC-AD 600
The Purple TrADers, 1000 BC-700 BC	p. 63
The Heirs of Odysseus, 800 BC-550 BC	p. 83
The Triumph of the Tyrrhenians, 800 BC-400 BC	p. 100
Towards the Garden of the Hesperides, 1000 BC-400 BC	p. 119
Thalassocracies, 550 BC-400 BC	p. 132
The Lighthouse of the Mediterranean, 350 BC-1oo BC	p. 149
'Carthage Must Be Destroyed', 400 BC-146 BC	p. 166
'Our Sea', 146 BC-AD 150	p. 191
Old and New Faiths, AD 1-450	p. 212
Dis-integration, 400-600	p. 226
The Third Mediterranean, 600-1350
Mediterranean Troughs, 600-900	p. 241
Crossing the Boundaries between Christendom and Islam, 900-1050	p. 258
The Great Sea-change, 1000-1100	p. 271
'The Profit That God Shall Give', 1100-1200	p. 287
Ways across the Sea, 1160-1185	p. 304
The Fall and Rise of Empires, 1130-1260	p. 318
Merchants, Mercenaries and Missionaries, 1220-1300	p. 334
Serrata- Closing, 1291-1350	p. 354
The Fourth Mediterranean, 1350-1830
Would-be Roman Emperors, 1350-1480	p. 373
Transformations in the West, 1391-1500	p. 392
Holy Leagues and Unholy Alliances, 1500-1550	p. 411
Akdeniz - the Battle for the White Sea, 1550-1571	p. 428
Interlopers in the Mediterranean, 1571-1650	p. 452
Diasporas in Despair, 1560-1700	p. 470
Encouragement to Others, 1650-1780	p. 488
The View through the Russian Prism, 1760-1805	p. 504
Deys, Beys and Bashaws, 1800-1830	p. 524
The Fifth Mediterranean, 1830-2010
Ever the Twain Shall Meet, 1830-1900	p. 545
The Greek and the unGreek, 1830-1920	p. 562
Ottoman Exit, 1900-1918	p. 573
A Tale of Four and a Half Cities, 1900-1950	p. 583
Mare Nostrum- Again, 1918-1945	p. 601
A Fragmented Mediterranean, 1945-1990	p. 613
The Last Mediterranean, 1950-2010	p. 628
Conclusion: Crossing the Sea	p. 641
Further ReADing	p. 649
Notes	p. 651
Index	p. 728
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