Description
Book SynopsisFrom the Straits of Gibraltar to Sicily, the European northern Mediterranean nations to the shores of North Africa, the western Mediterranean is a unique cultural and sociopolitical entity which has had a singular role in shaping today's global society. The Western Mediterranean and the World is the fascinating story of the rise of that peculiar world and of its evolution from the end of the Western Roman Empire to the present. Uniquely, rather than present the history of the region as a strict chronological progression, the author takes a thematic approach, telling his story through a series of vignettes, case studies, and original accounts so as to provide a more immediate sense of what life in and around the Mediterranean was like from the end of the Roman Empire in the West to the present immigration crisis now unfolding in Mediterranean waters. Emphasizing the development of religion and language and the enduring synergies and struggles between Christian, Jews, and Musli
Table of Contents
Series Editor’s Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
1 The Western Mediterranean: Sites of Encounter and Cultural Production 1
Part I Geography, History, and Cultural Contexts 17
2 The Imperatives of Geography and Climate: Sea and Land in the Western Mediterranean 19
3 History in the Mediterranean: From Unity to Fragmentation, circa 450 CE until the Early Modern World 47
4 History in the Mediterranean: The Making of the Modern World 75
5 Religions of the Western Mediterranean: Unity and Fragmentation in the Religious History of the Sea 105
6 Religions of the Western Mediterranean: Conversos and Renegades 125
7 Language, Culture, and Community in the Western Mediterranean 145
Part II Mediterranean Encounters 169
8 Encounters I: Traveling in the Western Mediterranean 171
9 Encounters II: The Mediterranean as a Site of Conflict, Movement, and Encounter 197
10 Between Two Worlds: Iberia, Sicily, Tunis, Algiers, and Marseille 227
11 On the Waters of the Western Mediterranean: Islands and Towns 265
12 Epilogue: The Western Mediterranean and the World 297
Bibliography 323
Index 335
