The Making of the Middle Sea

The first full, interpretive synthesis for a generation on the rise of the Mediterranean world from its very beginnings up to the threshold of Classical times - winner of the Wolfson History Prize. The Mediterranean has been for millennia one of the global cockpits of human endeavour. World-class interpretations exist of its Classical and subsequent history, but there has been remarkably little holistic exploration of how its societies, culture and economies first came into being, despite the fact that almost all the fundamental developments originated well before 500 BC. Mediterranean archaeology is one of the world''s richest sources for the reconstruction of ancient societies, yet this book is the first to draw in equal measure on ideas and information from the European, western Asian and African flanks, as well as the islands at the Mediterranean''s heart, to achieve a truly innovative focus on the varied trajectories and interactions that created this maritime world. The Making of the Middle Sea is extensively illustrated and ranges across disciplines, subject matter and chronology from early humans and the origins of farming and metallurgy to the rise of civilizations - Egyptian, Levantine, Minoan, Mycenaean, Phoenician, Etruscan, early Greek and ultimately pan-Mediterranean.

Auteur
Cyprian Broodbank is Professor of Archaeology and a Director at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. He was Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London from 1993 to 2014. His book An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades won the James R. Wiseman award of the Archaeological Institute of America (for all fields of archaeology), and the Runciman Prize (for all fields of Hellenic Studies).

Contenu
One: A Barbarian History • Two: Provocative Places • Three: The Speciating Sea (1.8 million 50,000 years ago) • Four: A Cold Coming We Had of It (50,000 years ago 10,000 BC) • Five: Brave New Worlds (10,000 5500 BC) • Six: How It Might Have Been (5500 3500 BC) • Seven: The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (3500 2200 BC) • Eight: Pomp and Circumstance (2200 1300 BC) • Nine: From Sea to Shining Sea (1300 800 BC) • Ten: The End of the Beginning (800 500 BC) • Eleven: De Profundis