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 people, 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.

作者简介

大卫•阿布拉菲亚（David Abulafia），英国剑桥大学地中海史教授、英国人文社会科学院院士，欧洲人文和自然科学院研究员。2003年因对意大利和地中海史研究的贡献而被授予意大利团结之星骑士勋章。2013年因本书被英国人文社会科学院授予奖章。另著有《腓烈特二世》和《人类的发现》。

译者简介

徐家玲，东北师范大学历史学院教授，博士生导师，中国世界古代中世纪史学会副会长。主要研究方向包括世界史、拜占庭和中世纪史、世界宗教史、世界女性史等。主要作品有《早期拜占庭和查士丁尼时代研究》《走出拜占庭文明》《拜占庭文明》《世界宗教史纲》。主要译著有《中世纪晚期欧洲经济社会史》《中世纪文明》《古巴史》等。