The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World - Hardcover

Cyprian Broodbank

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500051763 ISBN 13: 9780500051764

Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2013

Synopsis

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 2014

World-class interpretations exist of the Mediterranean's 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.

Table of Contents

1. A Barbarian History • 2. Provocative Places • 3. The Speciating Sea (1.8 million - 50,000 years ago) • 4. A Cold Coming We Had of It (50,000 years ago - 10,000 BC) • 5. Brave New Worlds (10,000 - 5500 BC) • 6. How it Might Have Been (5500 - 3500 BC) • 7. The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (3500 - 2200 BC) • 8. Pomp and Circumstance (2200 - 1300 BC) • 9. From Sea to Shining Sea (1300 - 800 BC) • 10. The End of the Beginning (800 - 500 BC) • 11 De Profundis • Notes, Bibliography, Index

About this title

About the Author

Cyprian Broodbank is Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. His previous 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).

From the Back Cover

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. This book is the first full, interpretive synthesis for a generation on the rise of the Mediterranean world from its beginning, before the emergence of our own species, up to the threshold of Classical times. Extensively illustrated and ranging across disciplines, subject matter and chronology from early humans and the origins of farming and metallurgy to the rise of civilizations Egyptian, Levantine, Hispanic, Minoan, Mycenaean, Phoenician, Etruscan, early Greek the book is a masterpiece of archaeological and historical writing.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0500051763
• ISBN 13: 9780500051764
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 672