The Mediterranean World

… handy…—Renaissance QuarterlyThe Mediterranean World succeeds as an accessible, up-to-date synthesis of recent interpretations of the Mediterranean for students and general readers. Specialists will undoubtedly be familiar with many of its interpretive points, and the book focuses more on stressing the consistent permeability of Mediterranean borders and boundaries than it does on defending a single overarching thesis. But this stress on synthesizing recent trends, coupled with the book’s enviable readability, will make it an excellent classroom text for undergraduates or even beginning graduate students. It is a book that defies assumptions about a Mediterranean splintered by religion, politics and culture and instead presents a nuanced view of a geographical body where divisions coexisted with deep connections that often traversed differences.—European History Quarterly

Monique O’Connell is an associate professor of history at Wake Forest University and the author of Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State. Eric R Dursteler is a professor of history at Brigham Young University and the author of Renegade Women: Gender, Identity, and Boundaries in the Early Modern Mediterranean.