The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean

Last updated
The Great Sea: A Human History
of the Mediterranean
The Great Sea book cover.jpg
Author David Abulafia
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Published2011 by Allen Lane
Pages816 pp (first edition)
ISBN 978-0-713-99934-1
OCLC 689522197

The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean is a book by the British historian David Abulafia. First published in 2011, it is a history of the Mediterranean Sea from 22,000 BC to the present time, and provides one of the most comprehensive treatments of the subject since the works of Fernand Braudel.

The book has been critically acclaimed and received the Mountbatten Literary Award from the Maritime Foundation, and the British Academy Medal. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] It has so far been translated into Dutch, Greek, Turkish, Spanish, Arabic, Korean, German, Italian, Romanian and Portuguese. [13]

Notes and references

  1. Lezard, Nicholas (1 May 2012). "The Great Sea by David Abulafia – review". The Guardian.
  2. Whitmarsh, Tim (17 June 2011). "The Great Sea by David Abulafia – review". The Guardian.
  3. Holland, Tom (15 May 2011). "The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean by David Abulafia — review". The Guardian.
  4. "Roger Crowley review, Literary Review". literaryreview.co.uk.
  5. "The Great Sea, By David Abulafia" . independent.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2022-06-18.
  6. Keates, Jonathan (3 May 2011). "The Great Sea by David Abulafia: review" via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  7. "The devil and the deep blue sea". The Economist. 5 May 2011.
  8. "The Great Sea". Financial Times.
  9. Richard Bosworth review, Times Higher Education Supplement, August 25, 2011.
  10. Jane Liddell-King review, Jewish Chronicle
  11. Gilmour, David (20 April 2011). "The broken core of the western world". prospectmagazine.co.uk.
  12. "• A great wine-dark sea of crises. - The Fortnightly Review". fortnightlyreview.co.uk. 4 November 2011.
  13. "Professor David Abulafia, FBA — Faculty of History". www.hist.cam.ac.uk.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Schama</span> British historian (born 1945)

Sir Simon Michael Schama is an English historian specialising in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He is a University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amitav Ghosh</span> Indian writer (born 1956)

Amitav Ghosh is an Indian writer. He won the 54th Jnanpith award in 2018, India's highest literary honor. Ghosh's ambitious novels use complex narrative strategies to probe the nature of national and personal identity, particularly of the people of India and South Asia. He has written historical fiction and also written non-fiction works discussing topics such as colonialism and climate change.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mediterranean Fleet</span> Formation of the Royal Navy, active from 1654 to 1967

The British Mediterranean Fleet, also known as the Mediterranean Station, was a formation of the Royal Navy. The Fleet was one of the most prestigious commands in the navy for the majority of its history, defending the vital sea link between the United Kingdom and the majority of the British Empire in the Eastern Hemisphere. The first Commander-in-Chief for the Mediterranean Fleet was the appointment of General at Sea Robert Blake in September 1654. The Fleet was in existence until 1967.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orlando Figes</span> British historian and writer

Orlando Guy Figes is a British historian and writer. Until his retirement, he was Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Jardine</span> British historian

Lisa Anne Jardine was a British historian of the early modern period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Hollander</span> British actor (born 1967)

Thomas Anthony Hollander is a British actor. As a child Hollander trained with the National Youth Theatre and was later involved in stage productions as a member of the Footlights and was president of the Marlowe Society. He later gained success for his roles on stage and screen, winning a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as nominations for a Tony Award and Olivier Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Vallely</span>

Paul Vallely CMG is a British writer on religion, ethics, Africa and development issues. In his seminal 1990 book Bad Samaritans: First World Ethics and Third World Debt, he first coined the phrase that campaigners needed to move "from charity to justice" – a slogan that was taken up by Jubilee 2000 and Live 8.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philippe Sands</span> British/French lawyer, legal academic and author (born 1960)

Philippe Joseph Sands, KC is a British and French writer and lawyer at 11 King's Bench Walk and Professor of Laws and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London. A specialist in international law, he appears as counsel and advocate before many international courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Abulafia</span> English historian

David Abulafia is an English historian with a particular interest in Italy, Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He spent most of his career at the University of Cambridge, rising to become a professor at the age of 50. He retired in 2017 as Professor Emeritus of Mediterranean History. He is a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was Chairman of the History Faculty at Cambridge University, 2003-5, and was elected a member of the governing Council of Cambridge University in 2008. He is visiting Beacon Professor at the new University of Gibraltar, where he also serves on the Academic Board. He is a visiting professor at the College of Europe.

Simon Mason is a British author of juvenile and adult fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Crumey</span>

Andrew Crumey is a novelist and former literary editor of the Edinburgh newspaper Scotland on Sunday. His works of literary fiction incorporate elements of speculative fiction, historical fiction, philosophical fiction and Menippean satire. Brian Stableford has called them "philosophical fantasies". The Spanish newspaper El Mundo called Crumey "one of the most interesting and original European authors of recent years."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Scurr</span> British historian and literary critic

Ruth Scurr, Lady Stothard FRSL is a British writer, historian and literary critic. She is a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

The Mountbatten Maritime Award is awarded annually by the Maritime Foundation to the author of a distinguished publication that has made a significant contribution to the maritime history of the United Kingdom. The prize is a piece of silver plate. Before 2018 it was known as The Mountbatten Maritime Award for Best Literary Contribution. From 2018 it is known as The Mountbatten Award for Best Book. The Trustees of the Maritime Foundation award the prize based on the recommendation of an Awards Committee.

Edith Hall, is a British scholar of classics, specialising in ancient Greek literature and cultural history, and professor in the Department of Classics and Centre for Hellenic Studies at King's College, London. She is a Fellow of the British Academy. From 2006 until 2011 she held a Chair at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she founded and directed the Centre for the Reception of Greece and Rome until November 2011. She resigned over a dispute regarding funding for classics after leading a public campaign, which was successful, to prevent cuts to or the closure of the Royal Holloway Classics department. She also co-founded and is Consultant Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at Oxford University, Chair of the Gilbert Murray Trust, and Judge on the Stephen Spender Prize for poetry translation. Her prizewinning doctoral thesis was awarded at Oxford. In 2012 she was awarded a Humboldt Research Prize to study ancient Greek theatre in the Black Sea, and in 2014 she was elected to the Academy of Europe. She lives in Cambridgeshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Britain</span> Island northwest of continental Europe

Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2 (80,823 sq mi), it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is dominated by a maritime climate with narrow temperature differences between seasons. The island of Ireland, with an area 40 per cent that of Great Britain, is to the west—these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands and named substantial rocks, form the British Isles archipelago.

Philip Mansel is a historian of courts and cities, and the author of a number of books about the history of France and the Ottoman Empire. He was born in London in 1951 and educated at Eton College, Balliol College, Oxford, and obtained a doctorate at University College London in 1978. He has lived in Paris, Istanbul and Beirut and now lives in London.

Vincent P. O’Hara is a naval author and historian, residing in California.

Sarah Bartlett Churchwell is a professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK. Her expertise is in 20th- and 21st-century American literature and cultural history, especially the 1920s and 1930s. She has appeared on British television and radio and has been a judge for the Booker Prize, the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction, and the David Cohen Prize for Literature. She is the director of the Being Human festival and the author of three books: The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe; Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby; and Behold America: A History of America First and the American Dream. In April 2021, she was long listed for the Orwell Prize for Journalism.

Roger Crowley is a British historian and author known for his books on maritime and Mediterranean history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Priyamvada Gopal</span> Professor at the University of Cambridge (born 1968)

Priyamvada Gopal is an Indian-born academic, writer and public intellectual who is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the University of Cambridge. Her primary teaching and research interests are in colonial and postcolonial studies, South Asian literature, critical race studies, and the politics and cultures of empire and globalisation. She has written three books engaging these subjects: Literary Radicalism in India (2005), The Indian English Novel (2009) and Insurgent Empire (2019). Her third book, Insurgent Empire, was shortlisted for the 2020 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding.