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The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean Paperback – 3 May 2012

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David Abulafia (Author)
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David Abulafia (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars 34 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Paperback: 816 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (3 May 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 014102755X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141027555
  • Product Dimensions: 13.5 x 3.8 x 21.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 165,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

The greatest living historian of the Mediterranean (Andrew Roberts)

A towering achievement. No review can really do justice to the scale of Abulafia's achievement: in its epic sweep, eye for detail and lucid style. (Dominic Sandbrook Sunday Times)

Brocaded with studious observation and finely-tuned scholarship, the overall effect is mesmerising. (Ian Thomson Independent)

A memorable study, its scholarship tinged with indulgent humour and an authorial eye for bizarre detail. (Jonathan Keates Sunday Telegraph)

The story is teeming with colourful characters, and Abulafia wears his scholarship lightly, even dashingly. (Simon Sebag Montefiore Financial Times)

About the Author

David Abulafia is Professor of Mediterranean History at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of Gonville and Caius College, and was until recently Chairman of the Cambridge History Faculty. His previous books include Frederick II and The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms. He is a member of the Academia Europaea, and in 2003 was made Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana in recognition of his work on Italian and Mediterranean history.

Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars`For over three thousand years, the Mediterranean Sea has been one of the great centres of world civilisation.'
By Jennifer Cameron-Smith TOP 500 REVIEWER on 7 Oct. 2011
Format: Hardcover
This book, the cover tells me, `is the first complete history of the Mediterranean from the erection of the mysterious temples on Malta around 3500 BC to the recent invention of the Mediterranean's shores as a tourist destination'. I was immediately fascinated: how does a history of a sea read? People interact with the sea in a number of ways, but they don't live on it. What facts become important, which aspects of human civilisation will feature, and why?

David Abulafia is professor of Mediterranean history at Cambridge and in this book he sets out the presence of the people who have lived around the Mediterranean from around 22000 BC to 2010 AD. This is a history of the people who `dipped their toes in the sea, and, best of all, took journeys across it.' The book is divided into five chronological sections:

The First Mediterranean 22000 BC - 1000 BC
The Second Mediterranean 1000 BC - 600 AD
The Third Mediterranean 600 AD - 1350 AD
The Fourth Mediterranean 1350 AD - 1830 AD
The Fifth Mediterranean 1830 AD - 2010 AD

Each section of the book opens and closes a period of the sea's history during which trade, cultural exchanges and empires act as unifiers before the process stops or reverses. Some of those significant events include the collapse of the Roman Empire, the impact of the Black Death and more recently the building of the Suez Canal.

`The history of the Mediterranean has been presented in this book as a series of phases in which the sea was, to a greater or lesser extent, integrated into a single economic and even political area. With the coming of the Fifth Mediterranean the whole character of this process changed.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsA Sea Made Great
By Charles Crowhurst on 27 July 2011
Format: Hardcover
Abulafi brings the Mediterranean to life in the best tradition of history writing. The subject is vast - and the book is accordingly long - but Abulafi's touch is both elegant and scholarly. All epochs, through nearly three millennia, receive detailed attention: there is no skipping through periods that the writer feels less interesting, since he is clearly fascinated by all.
As history I would put this in the same class as N.A.M. Rodger. Anyone who feels that history merits the very best writing would do well to buy this book, for it absorbs, informs and enchants.
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3.0 out of 5 starsIdiosyncratic attempt at global history
By docread on 6 Jun. 2011
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I was looking forward to Professor Abulafia new general history of the Mediterranean, anticipating a scholarly and less Eurocentric account than Lord Norwich 'Middle Sea'.To his credit he offers a more ecumenical account attempting to strike a balance between Antiquity and Modern Times, the North and the South , the West and the East.However any Historian seeking to tackle such a huge task is presented with the dilemma of what to include and what to leave out, how to balance the requirements of scholarship and those of writing popular history.In fact how do you write a 'Human History' if you exclude in your account the ordinary common people,how they lived and struggled on a daily basis, what brought them together and what separated them, what pushed them to migrate, convert to a new religion or rob and attack their neighbours, why did they launch into protracted family vendettas, how did they cope with plagues and famines, wars and persecutions? In that respect he fails to convince as we are treated to another chronology of events which is partial to the author's area of expertise thus devoting a substantial part of the text to the late Medieval and Renaissance periods. By contrast the long 20th century is treated in a relatively cursory manner.

Abulafia makes no secret that this book is a personal project aiming at the celebration of his ancestors' contribution.We are treated to the biographies of a number of Abulafias, who are minor actors and of little relevance to the wider narrative.The Sephardic trade diaspora occupies the lion's share of his historical preoccupation with transcultural trade. This leads him to bizarre digressions for example the four pages account devoted to Shabbetai Zevi,an eccentric Jewish apostate of the 17th century.Read more ›
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3.0 out of 5 starsToo selective in approach and disjointed
By trottman on 28 July 2013
Format: Paperback
The amount of praise heaped on David Abulafia's substantial tomb "The Great Sea" by newspaper critics would burden an elephant but on Amazon something akin to fifty per cent of the reviewers have described the book as dry, eclectic and in need of sharp editing. The dissent has been expressed in both abandoning the book and a sigh of relief on completing each mercifully short chapter.

To cease reading is a pity for the book does contain a wealth of information and once the Common Era is reached both literary style and content liven up considerably. That said the author's own particular interest fields soon become apparent. He writes at length over the impact made by the discovery of yet another shard of pottery and the importance to history of the activities of a local adventurer (often Jewish) but seriously great events can be dismissed in less than a page.

To write a human history of the Mediterranean, condensed into one volume, is a daunting undertaking but the final impression is that the author found the task too demanding and shared the anxiety of certain readers to get to the finishing post.

Trottman
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