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.

作者簡介

大衛•阿布拉菲亞（David Abulafia），英國劍橋大學地中海史教授、英國人文社會科學院院士，歐洲人文和自然科學院研究員。2003年因對意大利和地中海史研究的貢獻而被授予意大利團結之星騎士勛章。2013年因本書被英國人文社會科學院授予奬章。另著有《腓烈特二世》和《人類的發現》。

譯者簡介

徐傢玲，東北師範大學曆史學院教授，博士生導師，中國世界古代中世紀史學會副會長。主要研究方嚮包括世界史、拜占庭和中世紀史、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時代研究》《走齣拜占庭文明》《拜占庭文明》《世界宗教史綱》。主要譯著有《中世紀晚期歐洲經濟社會史》《中世紀文明》《古巴史》等。