A Companion to Mediterranean History

Peregrine Horden is Professor of Medieval History at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is co–author, with Nicholas Purcell, of The Corrupting Sea (2000), and author of Hospitals and Healing from Antiquity to the Later Middle Ages (2008).   Sharon Kinoshita is Professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is Co–Director of the UCSC Center for Mediterranean Studies, and Co–Director of the UC Multicampus Research Project in Mediterranean Studies. Her publications include Medieval Boundaries: Rethinking Difference in Old French Literature (2006).

A Companion to Mediterranean History presents the first authoritative overview of this diverse and vibrant field of historical research.  Featuring contributions from leading experts in various strands of Mediterranean research – including history, anthropology, archaeology and art history – essays cover developments in the region from Neolithic times to the modern era.      Mediterranean history has never been more widely debated or practised, yet there remains no consensus about precisely how this history should be written, the definition of its parameters, or the breadth of topics it should include. In summarising the latest scholarship and reappraising key concepts, contributors to this volume enable fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue on subjects ranging from climate and cartography to material culture and heritage politics. A Companion to Mediterranean History represents an invaluable guide to the current state of Mediterranean scholarship that will also help to redefine the field for a new generation.