The Making of the Middle Sea

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).

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.

One: A Barbarian History - Two: Provocative Places - Three: The Speciating Sea (1.8 million - 50,000 years ago) - Four: A Cold Coming We Had of It (50,000 years ago - 10,000 bc) - Five: Brave New Worlds (10,000 -5500 bc) - Six: How It Might Have Been (5500 - 3500 bc) - Seven: The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (3500 - 2200 bc) - Eight: Pomp and Circumstance (2200 - 1300 bc) - Nine: From Sea to Shining Sea (1300 - 800 bc) - Ten: The End of the Beginning (800 - 500 bc) - Eleven: De Profundis