The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean

This lively and dramatic book brings roaring to life the grand sweep of 5,000 years of history in the cradle of civilization.

A wonderfully illustrated account of the civilizations that rose and fell on the lands bordering the Mediterranean, The Middle Sea represents the culmination of a great historian’s unparalleled art and scholarship. John Julius Norwich provides brilliant portraits of the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the French, the Venetians, the Popes, and the pirates of the Gulf. Above all, he deftly traces the intermingling of ancient conflicts and modern sensibilities that shapes life today on the shores of the Middle Sea.

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• Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy
• Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe
• The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean
• Chronicles of the First Crusade (Penguin Classics)
• Classical Antiquity: A Captivating Guide to Ancient Greece and Rome and How These Civilizations Influenced Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia