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783 pages, Hardcover
First published May 17, 2011
I have identified five distinct periods: a First Mediterranean that descended into chaos after 1200 BC, that is, around the time Troy is said to have fallen; a Second Mediterranean that survived until about AD 500; a Third Mediterranean that emerged slowly and then experienced a great crisis at the time of the Black Death (1347); a Fourth Mediterranean that had to cope with increasing competition from the Atlantic, and domination by Atlantic powers, ending around the time of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869; finally, a Fifth Mediterranean that became a passage-way to the Indian Ocean, and found a surprising new identity in the second half of the twentieth century.Of these, my favorite was the First Mediterranean, both because the popular image of history before the Roman Empire is of a very atomized society without much long-range connection, which The Great Sea does a great job of countering; and the fact that the Bronze Age Collapse is one of the most interesting periods in history.