The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean

This lively, beautifully illustrated history of the civilizations that rose and fell on the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea represents the culmination of a great historians unparalleled art, eye, and scholarship.

John Julius Norwich is renowned for his magisterial histories, including the two-volume A History of Venice and the three-volume Byzantium. The Middle Sea showcases the qualities that have made him one of the most respected and popular historians of our day: witty prose, scrupulous research, and an unerring ability to bring to life the dramatic event, the colorful character, and the telling detail.

Norwich traverses five thousand years of history, tracing the growth of culture, trade, political alliances and enmities, and religious movements from the Phoenician civilization to present-day Mediterranean nations.

In a vivid, fully accessible narrative, he recounts the achievements of the Phoenicians, those great sea traders who carried not just goods but also knowledge to Europe and parts of Asia, the glories of ancient Egypt, the extraordinary contributions of the Greeks, and the rise of the mighty Romans. The twin stories of Byzantium and Islam, the dominant forces after the fall of Rome, crescendo in the incredible saga of the Fourth Crusade and carry readers to the reemergence of a vibrant Europe.

From the far-reaching developments in medieval France to the Renaissance wars in Italy to the triumph of Isabellas Spain, Norwich provides a brilliant portrait of the intermingling of ancient conflicts and modern sensibilities that shape life today on the shores of the Middle Sea.

"For anyone who has traveled the shores of that pocket sea, the cradle of civilization, John Julius Norwich's history of the Mediterranean is a cause for celebration. This traveler, historian and master stylist has already given us superbly readable histories of Byzantium, Sicily and Venice. 'The Middle Sea' is a summation of his knowledge, as well as a demonstration of his unrivaled narrative skills.... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) He is an amateur historian but an amateur only in the original sense, a writer effervescing with insight and affection; many 'professional' historians might envy the wit and vigor of his storytelling and his profound engagement with his subject.

Or subjects: Norwich's Mediterranean is not so much a single stage as a glorious fair, with countless booths and sideshows to be visited in the company of this master showman. This is the Grand Tour of the great civilizations that rose and fell on the shores of the Mediterranean, and Norwich constantly adjusts his focus, pushing off from a description of some grand battle to a discussion of theology or art, sweeping up ancient Egypt in a few pages and devoting almost two chapters to Napoleon.

Vivid characters animate this story at every turn. Between 'Akhnaton (1367-50 BC) — instantly recognisable by his long, narrow, pointed face, stooping body and huge thighs' and Greek Prime Minister Venizilos, 'a strange medley of charm, brigandage, weltpolitik, patriotism, courage, literature,' 'The Middle Sea' sustains a cast of thousands. There's scarcely a corner of that wondrous sea that isn't illuminated, at some stage in the narrative, by a confrontation, an abduction, a coronation or a seduction — and no one planning a simple vacation by the wine-dark sea can afford to leave this book at home.

Stephen O'Shea has set himself a grimmer task. 'Sea of Faith' treads the same boards as 'The Middle Sea,' but it is more narrowly concerned with tracing the thousand years of conflict and accommodation between Christianity and Islam in the Mediterranean world — a type of sibling rivalry, as he says, between two faiths claiming Jewish parentage.

Christians, proselytizing and persecuted for generations, saw their faith officially adopted by the Roman Empire in the 4th century, from which emerged a Christian commonwealth across the whole of the Mediterranean world. In the 7th century, the prophet Muhammad received a new revelation from the angel Jibril in Arabia, which inspired the Arabs to break out of their desert strongholds. Within three generations their armies had overthrown much of the Christianized Roman Empire, sweeping through Persia, North Africa and Spain, as far as Poitiers in France. In the 13th century, they lost their hold on Spain, but in the east they succeeded to the Byzantine Empire: Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453.

O'Shea forms his narrative around seven major battles between Muslims and Christians. The first took place in 636 at Yarmuk, in modern Syria, and spelled the end of popular Christianity in its Middle Eastern birthplace; the last of his battles is the great Turkish assault on Malta in 1565, which signaled the end of Islamic expansion in the Mediterranean world. In between, we travel to France, Spain, Sicily and Turkey, exploring a relationship that was sometimes bitter, sometimes encouragingly harmonious but always complex.

O'Shea points out that the battles themselves grew out of shared circumstances, suggesting that we all have as much to learn from the periods of calm as from the episodes of conflict. Western knights, newly arrived in the Crusader kingdom of Outremer in Palestine, were horrified by the apparent laxity of the 'poulains,' the so-called 'kids,' descended from earlier Crusaders, who had been brought up in the Middle East. Itching to slaughter infidels, the newcomers were frequently restrained by their fellow Christians; they discovered that the Christian 'kings of Jerusalem wore burnooses and kaiffiyeh; hot water and soap held no terrors for them; dancing girls entertained them; professional mourners ululated at their funerals; and their villas, replete with colourful mosaics and a central fountain, resembled nothing so much as a typical Syrian mansion.'

The mingling of faiths was not unique to Outremer. What the Spanish called convivencia, or living together, flourished. Similar, if short-lived, splendor could be found in 12th-century Sicily, where Norman militarism briefly fused with Greek culture and Islamic science; Muslim Cordoba, in the 10th century, was the greatest city in Europe; from Toledo, after the Christian conquest, Arabic transcriptions of Greek philosophy kick-started the 12th-century Renaissance. Convivencia was not modern multiculturalism — no one could ever doubt who was in charge; but even Ottoman Constantinople remained a Greek city in many ways, with the Orthodox patriarch appointed by his Muslim overlord, the sultan.

O'Shea stops his narrative in 1565, shortly before the whole Mediterranean world was eclipsed by the conquest of the Atlantic, ahead of the perceived sidelining of Islamic civilization over the past four centuries. By taking us back to the medieval era, when the twin ideologies were more perfectly balanced, O'Shea alerts us to a sense of a common history.

If it is possible for the peoples of the Book to live in relative harmony at various places and times, then the relationship between Islam and Christianity — between any faiths, for that matter — doesn't have to end in battle. As Norwich reminds us, many conflicts have been fought in the Mediterranean — some for faith, no doubt, but all of them certainly also driven by the age-old lusts for wealth, power and status. In the cockpit of the Mediterranean, O'Shea writes, 'sparks flew for many reasons, the greatest of which was the belief in war as the ultimate arbiter of politics and policy.' All that civilization — and plus ca change.

Jason Goodwin is the author of 'Lords of the Horizons: a History of the Ottoman Empire.' His most recent novel is 'The Janissary Tree.'" Reviewed by Jason Goodwin, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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JOHN JULIUS NORWICH is the author of many acclaimed works of history, including A History of Venice, Byzantium, and, most recently, Paradise of Cities. He has also written and presented some thirty historical documentaries for BBC television. Formerly chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund, he now heads the World Monuments Fund in Britain.