The Middle Sea : a history of the Mediterranean / John Julius Norwich.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 603-609) and index.

Beginnings -- Ancient Greece -- Rome : the Republic -- Rome : the early Empire -- Islam -- Medieval Italy -- The Christian counter-attack -- The two diasporas -- Stupor mundi -- The end of Outremer -- The close of the Middle Ages -- The fall of Constantinople -- The Catholic Kings and the Italian adventure -- The king, the emperor and the sultan -- Barbary and the Barbarossas -- Malta and Cyprus -- Lepanto and the Spanish Conspiracy -- Crete and the Peloponnese -- The Wars of Succession -- The Siege of Gibraltar -- The young Napoleon -- Neapolitan interlude -- Egypt after Napoleon -- The settlement of Europe -- Freedom for Greece -- Mohammed Ali and north Africa -- The Quarantotto -- Risorgimento -- The queens and the Carlists -- Egypt and the Canal -- The Balkan Wars -- The Great War -- The peace.

A one-volume narrative history of the Mediterranean from Ancient Egypt to 1919. Written in the racy, readable prose for which author Norwich is famous, this is colorful, character-driven history. He tackles a vast subject--vast in time, from the oldest surviving pyramid to the First World War; vast in geography, from Gibraltar to Jerusalem; and vast in culture, including as it does the civilizations of the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, Greece, Carthage, Rome and Byzantium, the Borgias and the Medicis, Muhammad and El Cid, Napoleon and Nelson, Moslems, Jews and Christians. This book is not a dry record of facts; it is a rackety read about historical figures--dissolute popes and wily emperors, noble-hearted generals and beautiful princesses. Towns are besieged and sacked, kingdoms won and lost. The narrative covers the glories of Constantinople and Venice, and the stirring history of the islands of Malta, Sicily, Crete and Cyprus.--From publisher description.