Mediterranean

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The field of Renaissance Mediterranean studies for the period 1300–1700 has produced several of the great works of 20th-century historical scholarship, and because of the transregional character of the Mediterranean, which deprivileges the nation-state, the region continues to attract significant interdisciplinary scholarly research. While much has been written about aspects or parts of the Mediterranean, this entry will focus primarily on works that attempt to address the larger questions of the Mediterranean as a broad entity. Thus, the criteria for selection has been to favor texts that address historical issues in a broadly Mediterranean framework, rather than studies that focus more narrowly on regions of the Mediterranean. Because of the unique challenges presented in studying a geographically large and culturally diverse region, one with tremendous linguistic variation and different national historiographical traditions, a large number of works that attempt to treat the Mediterranean are collaborative collections of essays.

General Overviews

Braudel 1972 (originally published in French in 1949) is the seminal work. Horden and Purcell 2000 builds on Braudel’s idea of Mediterranean unity, arguing that Mediterranean unity is a product of connectivity between microregions. Wright 1999 is also Braudelian, and sees evidence of Mediterranean unity in the region’s culinary history. Abulafia 2003 and Matvejević 1999 both seek to understand the Mediterranean by going beyond the heavy environmental focus of Braudel 1972, emphasizing individuals, culture, society, and politics. Norwich 2006 is strictly narrative and political.

Abulafia, David, ed. The Mediterranean in History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003.
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This lavishly illustrated volume contains eight essays surveying Mediterranean history from prehistorical to contemporary times. The impact of the physical setting is emphasized, but not to the same extent as Braudel 1972 or Horden and Purcell 2000. Rather, the role of individuals and the influence of political, social, and religious factors are privileged.
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Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. 2 vols. Translated by Siân Reynolds. New York: Harper, 1972.
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One of the classics of 20th-century historiography, this work set the paradigm for Mediterranean studies and remains an essential point of reference. Braudel approaches the history of the sea from a long-term perspective, examining the deep structural features that form the sea and that inform the more transitory human social, cultural, and political aspects of Mediterranean history. He insists on the fundamental unity of the Mediterranean, joined by all the deep geological, climatic, and environmental structures he describes.
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Horden, Peregrine, and Nicholas Purcell. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
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An influential study that builds on Braudel’s vision (Braudel 1972) of Mediterranean unity by looking at Mediterranean social, economic, and cultural history from antiquity to the Middle Ages in a broadly multidisciplinary fashion. Argues that Mediterranean unity is a product of ease of communication and connectivity between the various microregions that comprise it. This work revived the study of the Mediterranean as an entity, and has spawned significant debate.
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Matvejević, Predrag. Mediterranean: A Cultural Landscape. Translated by Michael Henry Heim. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
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Attempting to move beyond the broad treatments of Braudel 1972 and Horden and Purcell 2000, this work focuses more subjectively on the cultural world of the Mediterranean, and argues for the role of religious, linguistic, culinary, and intellectual factors on the shaping of the sea’s history. Emphasizes the heterogeneous yet unified character of Mediterranean culture.
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Norwich, John Julius. The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean. London: Chatto and Windus, 2006.
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An expansive history of the Mediterranean from antiquity to World War I, written by one of the great masters of narrative history. Heavily focused on great individuals, politics, and battles, with little attention to society, art, literature, or culture.
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Wright, Clifford A. A Mediterranean Feast: The Story of the Birth of the Celebrated Cuisines of the Mediterranean, from the Merchants of Venice to the Barbary Corsairs; with More Than 500 Recipes. New York: William Morrow, 1999.
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A fascinating and eclectic work that is half cookbook and half historical survey. Building on Braudel’s thesis of the unity of the Mediterranean, the author attempts to show this unity through a study of the cross-pollination of the region’s cuisines.
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Journals

The growth of Mediterranean studies has spawned a number of specialized scholarly journals. With the exception of the excellent Al-Masaq, which focuses on the medieval Islamic Mediterranean, most of the other journals publish articles on all aspects and eras of the Mediterranean, from antiquity to the present. The result can be excellent individual articles, but occasionally unfocused and inconsistent volumes in the case of Journal of Mediterranean Studies and Mediterranean Studies, or Scripta Mediterranea, though the latter tends to publish heavily on Mediterranean literature. More topically focused are the Mediterranean Historical Review, which focuses on history, and linguistics-oriented Mediterranean Language Review.

Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean.
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An essential source for scholarship on Islamic culture in the Mediterranean from the 8th to the 15th centuries, published by the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean. With a strong emphasis on cross-cultural studies, unlike all the other Mediterranean journals, Al-Masaq is highly focused temporally and topically.
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Journal of Mediterranean Studies.
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Published by the University of Malta, this journal publishes in a wide range of disciplines, including history, anthropology, literature, art, and archeology. As with most other Mediterranean journals, it also publishes work on topics from antiquity to modernity, some of which is of inconsistent quality.
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Mediterranean Historical Review.
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The premier Mediterranean historical journal, publishing articles on all aspects of Mediterranean history from antiquity to modernity.
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Mediterranean Language Review.
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An interdisciplinary journal published at Heidelberg University that examines the rich and complex linguistic world of the Mediterranean in both historical and contemporary times.
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Mediterranean Studies.
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Sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Association, this annual journal publishes scholarly research on the Mediterranean from all disciplines and all time periods. The eccentric mix of scholarship can sometimes have a hodgepodge-like quality.
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Scripta Mediterranea.
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An annual publication of the Canadian Institute for Mediterranean Studies, with articles on all aspects and periods of Mediterranean history. Although interdisciplinary, the journal has a strong literary emphasis.
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Anthropological Approaches

From very early on, the Mediterranean attracted the interest of anthropologists; indeed, it is one of the discipline’s most studied regions and has produced some of its foundational works and concepts. Davis 1977 is a synthesis of anthropological research on the Mediterranean up to that point. Albera, et al. 2001 is a massive collection of essays that addresses and updates all aspects of Mediterranean anthropology. This has not been an uncontested field, however; indeed, even more than historians, anthropologists have debated the validity of the Mediterranean as an analytical category, as in Herzfeld 1984. Gilmore 1982 and Albera 2006 are helpful primers on the issues and debates in Mediterranean anthropology.

Albera, Dionigi. “Anthropology of the Mediterranean: Between Crisis and Renewal.” History and Anthropology 17 (2006): 109–134.
DOI: 10.1080/02757200600633272Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Yet another examination of the highly contested world of Mediterranean anthropological research.
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Albera, Dionigi, Anton Blok, and Christian Bromberger, eds. L’anthropologie de la Méditerranée: Anthropology of the Mediterranean. Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose, 2001.
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Revisits a number of the key themes that anthropologists studying the Mediterranean have treated—honor and shame, clientelism, sociability, the family, cuisine, symbolic systems. Also addresses the ongoing anthropological debate on the validity of the Mediterranean as a focus of research.
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Davis, John. People of the Mediterranean: An Essay in Comparative Social Anthropology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977.
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The first attempt at a broad synthesis of the initial three decades of anthropological research on the Mediterranean. Surveys the key themes that have occupied Mediterraneanists. Also argues for the need for more comparative work and the use of historical work by anthropologists of the Mediterranean.
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Gilmore, David D. “Anthropology of the Mediterranean Area.” Annual Review of Anthropology 11 (1982): 175–205.
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.an.11.100182.001135Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A valuable survey of the most important anthropological treatments of the Mediterranean and the key issues of debate among the region’s anthropologists.
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Herzfeld, Michael. “The Horns of the Mediterraneanist Dilemma.” American Ethnologist 11 (1984): 439–454.
DOI: 10.1525/ae.1984.11.3.02a00020Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An important challenge to the ways in which anthropologists have approached the Mediterranean, from the most important anthropologist critic of the Mediterranean as a category of historical and anthropological analysis. Argues that scholars have reified the Mediterranean as a common cultural zone sharing rituals and attitudes that are, in fact, based more on northern European stereotypes of the region.
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Honor and Shame

One area that has attracted significant attention among anthropologists and other scholars is the functioning of honor and shame in Mediterranean societies. The foundational work is Péristiany 1965; Gilmore 1987 updates and expands on this work, but remains fundamentally convinced of the utility of these concepts in describing an essential element of Mediterranean culture. Herzfeld 1980 is highly critical of the way these concepts have been applied to the Mediterranean. Povolo 1997 is a representative example of the ways in which historians have applied the anthropological concepts to their work.

Gilmore, David D., ed. Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association, 1987.
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Returns to the themes developed in Péristiany 1965, and updates and expands on them. More balanced in considering both the supporters and the critics of the conceptual utility of the categories of honor and shame.
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Herzfeld, Michael. “Honour and Shame: Problems in the Comparative Analysis of Moral Systems.” Man n.s., 15 (June 1980): 339–351.
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An important critique of the literature on honor and shame, particularly Davis 1977 (cited under Anthropological Approaches), which argues that broad generalizations about Mediterranean-wide attitudes and values obscure very real geographic and chronological variants and diversity in practice.
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Péristiany, Jean G., ed. Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965.
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Though now dated, this is a foundational and highly influential collection of essays that lays out many of the parameters and major issues relating to honor and shame. Contributions examine both contemporary and historical rural Mediterranean societies, from Greece to North Africa to Spain.
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Povolo, Claudio. L’intrigo dell’Onore: Poteri e istituzioni nella Repubblica di Venezia tra Cinque e Seicento. Verona, Italy: Cierre, 1997.
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Through a close reading of an early modern criminal case on the Venetian mainland, Povolo develops a nuanced historical treatment that is heavily informed by the anthropological literature. As with most other historical works, this book is comfortable in embracing the utility of honor and shame in analyzing early modern Italian society and political institutions.
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Schneider, Jane. “Of Vigilance and Virgins: Honor, Shame, and Access to Resources in Mediterranean Societies.” Ethnology 10 (1971): 1–24.
DOI: 10.2307/3772796Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Attempts to bridge the divide between European and North African historians of honor, arguing for a unified, Braudelian vision of the Mediterranean, as evidenced in views and practices related to women’s virginity broadly held throughout the Mediterranean.
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Art and Architecture

Although art historians have often focused more narrowly on regional or national questions, scholars of Mediterranean art and architecture have in recent years asked questions that go beyond such narrow parameters. Georgopoulou 2001 examines the dynamic relationship of Venetian and Byzantine art in Venice’s colonial enterprise. Howard 2000 is a masterful study of the impact of Islamic architecture on Venetian architecture, while Necipoğlu 2005 illustrates the importance of Italian Renaissance models on the Ottoman architect Sinan. Mack 2002 places Renaissance material culture in a broadly Mediterranean context. Weissman 1987 joins Mediterranean anthropology and art in looking at Renaissance patronage.

Georgopoulou, Maria. Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies: Architecture and Urbanism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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Through a detailed study of Venice’s eastern Mediterranean stato da mar colonies, this book illustrates the complex and dynamic architectural and urbanistic relationship between Byzantium and Venice, and between Venice and its new colonial empire from 1204 to 1669. Argues that Venice used art and symbol as a means of colonizing its Greek subjects.
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Howard, Deborah. Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture, 1100–1500. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.
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A meticulously researched and beautifully illustrated volume by an excellent scholar, which surveys in exacting detail the importation by Venetian travelers, merchants, and diplomats of Islamic architectural elements and the ways in which these were adopted and adapted in Venetian architecture.
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Mack, Rosamond E. Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300–1600. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
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Contends that the Italian Renaissance did not occur in isolation, but rather was the product of a dialogue with and synthesis of artistic ideas heavily influenced by contributions from the Islamic world. This is supported through an analysis of the commercial and artistic exchange between Italy and the Islamic Mediterranean. Chapters treat specific goods to illustrate how Renaissance Italian patterns and artisanal methods were rooted in the Middle East.
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Necipoğlu, Gülru. The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
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The essential work on the 16th-century Ottoman architect Sinan. Surveys the range of his works with vivid illustrations, from mosques to more mundane commissions, and situates them in a wider cultural and historical context. Argues that Sinan’s unique designs were heavily influenced by his court patrons and draws parallels with contemporary Italian architecture, knowledge of which, the author argues, circulated widely in the Mediterranean and heavily influenced the Ottoman architect.
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Weissman, Ronald. “Taking Patronage Seriously: Mediterranean Values and Renaissance Society.” In Patronage, Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy. Edited by Francis William Kent and Patricia Simons, 25–45. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
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Argues that patronage is essential to understanding Renaissance art, and attempts to place Renaissance art patronage into the broader context of anthropological studies on Mediterranean systems of patronage. Contends that Renaissance patronage, seen from a classical, urban, Mediterranean perspective, ceases to appear as a curious feudal remnant.
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Cities

The importance of Mediterranean urban centers was noted by Fernand Braudel (see Braudel 1972 in General Overviews) and has given rise to a solid body of research. Nicolet, et al. 2000 considers broadly the place of large cities in Mediterranean history, while Marin and Virlouvet 2003 looks specifically at the issue of provisioning these large cities. Eldem, et al. 1999 looks at several Ottoman cities in discrediting the concept of the typical “oriental” city. Cowan 2000 takes on the question of a common Mediterranean urban culture, but its Eurocentric and eclectic approach is ultimately unable to produce compelling conclusions.

Cowan, Alexander, ed. Mediterranean Urban Culture, 1400–1700. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2000.
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Continuing Fernand Braudel’s emphasis on the importance of towns to the Mediterranean system, this collection of essays attempts, with only limited success, to discover whether a common Mediterranean urban culture existed in the early modern era.
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Eldem, Edhem, Daniel Goffman, and Bruce Masters. The Ottoman City between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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Through a comparative study of three important and unique Ottoman cities, the authors discredit the concept, popular in earlier generations of urban scholarship, of a monolithic “oriental” or Islamic city.
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Marin, Brigitte, and Catherine Virlouvet, eds. Nourrir les cités de Méditerranée: Antiquité—Temps modernes. Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose, 2003.
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Fascinating collection of essays examining the question of provisioning cities in the Mediterranean from antiquity to today. Rome and Istanbul/Constantinople receive special treatment, but other Mediterranean cities are also considered. Topics include markets, food distribution, and provisioning policies.
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Nicolet, Claude, Robert Ilbert, and Jean-Charles Depaule, eds. Mégapoles méditerranéennes: Géographie urbaine rétrospective. Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose, 2000.
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A massive collaborative undertaking that argues that megalopolises are not solely a modern phenomenon, but rather that there are various examples in the premodern Mediterranean. Cities discussed include Rome, Istanbul/Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, and themes include demography, administration, religion, and the city in literature. Contains extensive thematic bibliographies.
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Environment

Because of the total historical approach of Fernand Braudel and his followers (see General Overviews), one of the areas of Mediterranean studies that has attracted significant attention is the environment. Most of these studies approach their topic from a long-term perspective; however, all provide valuable insight into late medieval and early modern Mediterranean environmental issues. McNeill 1992 views the depopulation of Mediterranean mountain regions as a product of human exploitation, whereas Grove and Rackham 2003 argues against the view that the present Mediterranean environment is a product of human mismanagement. Barker 1995, in contrast, examines the environment of a Mediterranean valley over the long term. Thirgood 1981 considers the enduring question of Mediterranean deforestation, with special attention to Cyprus, while Appuhn 2009 complicates the general view of indifference and degradation through a study of Venetian forest management.

Appuhn, Karl. A Forest on the Sea: Environmental Expertise in Renaissance Venice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
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A fascinating, focused study of Venetian forest management in the early modern era. Links the Venetian forest management to the state and its officials, rural society, and the shipbuilding industry.
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Barker, Graeme, ed. A Mediterranean Valley: Landscape Archaeology and Annales History in the Biferno Valley. London: Leicester University Press, 1995.
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An ambitious attempt at studying the settlement of a typical Mediterranean landscape over the long term, from prehistory to contemporary times. Locates this local story in a wider Mediterranean historical and historiographical context.
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Grove, Alfred Thomas, and Oliver Rackham. The Nature of Mediterranean Europe: An Ecological History. 2d ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.
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A revisionist work that examines Mediterranean history from prehistory to the present. Challenges the long-held “ruined landscape” hypothesis, which holds that the Mediterranean’s current arid and treeless environment is the product of human mismanagement that degraded a once-fertile environment. Particularly critical of the view of the views of McNeill 1992.
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McNeill, John Robert. The Mountains of the Mediterranean World: An Environmental History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
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A historical analysis of the mountain regions of the Mediterranean over the long term. Focusing on case studies of communities in Turkey, Italy, Greece, Spain, and Morocco, McNeill demonstrates the centrality of mountains to understanding the Mediterranean, the intimate relationship of these mountain communities and their environments, and on depopulation as a consequence of overuse.
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Thirgood, J. V. Man and the Mediterranean Forest: A History of Resource Depletion. London: Academic Press, 1981.
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Examines the issue of Mediterranean deforestation from classical antiquity on throughout the region, but with special attention to Cyprus. Links deforestation to environmental factors as well as political, cultural, and social ones.
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Jews

Because of their pan-Mediterranean presence, and the important role they played in many aspects of Mediterranean history, Jews have attracted significant attention as the quintessential Mediterranean people. Toaff, et al. 1989–2002 treats various aspects of Jewish life, focusing heavily on Italy, whereas Meyuhas Ginio 1992 is more Mediterranean-wide in its treatment. Trivellato 2009 is a brilliant evocation of Sephardic trading networks throughout the Mediterranean. Ashtor 1983 focuses on Jewish trade in the later Middle Ages, whereas Arbel 1995 looks at the early modern period, and specifically the integration of the Jews into Venetian economic life. Goitein 1999 is one of the great works of 20th-century scholarship, a more microscopic, human treatment of the Jews in the Mediterranean in comparison with the structuralism of Fernand Braudel (see General Overviews).

Arbel, Benjamin. Trading Nations: Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1995.
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Through studies of individual Jewish merchants, traces the 16th-century transition of Jews from outsiders to integrated figures in the Venetian commercial world. This transformation is linked closely to the large-scale migration of Jews to Ottoman lands and their status in Ottoman society.
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Ashtor, Eliyahu. The Jews and the Mediterranean Economy, 10th–15th Centuries. London: Variorum, 1983.
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Collection of essays on various Jewish communities throughout the Mediterranean and on the role of the Jews in the Mediterranean economy and in commercial exchanges between Muslims and Christians during the later Middle Ages.
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Goitein, Shlomo Dov. A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgement in One Volume. Revised and edited by Jacob Lassner. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
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A remarkable and vast evocation of the social, religious, economic, political, and cultural world of the Jewish community of Cairo in the High Middle Ages. Locates the individuals and activities of the community in a wider Mediterranean context and in dialogue with Christians and Muslims. A single-volume abridgment summarizes the multivolume set.
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Meyuhas Ginio, Alisa, ed. Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Mediterranean World after 1492. London: Frank Cass, 1992.
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Series of essays focusing on Jewish Mediterranean culture and society, with a special focus on intercultural relations between Christians and Jews. Pan-Mediterranean in its treatment, examining Jewish communities in Spain, Dalmatia, Egypt, Greece, and Italy (especially Venice).
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Toaff, Ariel, Simon Schwarzfuchs, Elliott S. Horowitz, and Moisés Orfali Levi, eds. The Mediterranean and the Jews. 2 vols. Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1989–2002.
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A valuable two-volume collection of essays on the Jewish Mediterranean experience from the expulsion from Spain in 1492 into the 19th century. Topics treated range from commerce to culture. Focus is primarily on southern Europe, to the exclusion of most of the rest of the Mediterranean, especially Ottoman lands.
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Trivellato, Francesca. The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
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An ambitious study of the extensive and complex trading networks of the Sephardic Jewish community of Livorno. Drawing on economic theory and historical research, the book argues that cosmopolitan trade and social networks were able to bridge religious and cultural divides.
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The Mediterranean Debate

The field of Mediterranean studies has produced a large amount of debate, much of it surrounding the two chief interpretative studies of Fernand Braudel, Peregrine Horden, and Nicholas Purcell (see General Overviews), which have dominated the field. Marino 2002 is an uneven collection of essays that reflect on the engagement with the social sciences by Braudel. Harris 2005 is an excellent collection of essays responding directly to Horden and Purcell, and indirectly to Braudel. Horden 2005 is a useful survey of Mediterranean scholarship since Braudel. Hess 1978 challenges the unified Mediterranean posited by Braudel, emphasizing the sea’s significant regional and religious divisions. Cooke 1999 is a compelling attempt at an aquacentric approach to the Mediterranean, while Finucci 2007 is a valuable collection of recent essays on a range of Mediterranean questions.

Cooke, Miriam. “Mediterranean Thinking: From Netizen to Medizen.” Geographical Review 89 (1999): 290–300.
DOI: 10.2307/216093Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues against an undifferentiated view of the water and land features of the Mediterranean, which tends to homogenize the sea’s significant diversity. An aquacentric approach challenges traditional models of understanding the Mediterranean.
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Finucci, Valeria, ed. “Special Issue: Mapping the Mediterranean.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 37.1 (2007).
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A recent and valuable collection of essays on various aspects of Mediterranean history, ranging from cartography to costume, literature, and slavery.
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Harris, William V., ed. Rethinking the Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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An essential collection of essays on the historiographical and anthropological debates surrounding the field of ancient, medieval, and early modern Mediterranean studies. While Braudel is amply discussed, this volume is primarily a response to Horden and Purcell 2000 (cited under General Overviews).
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Hess, Andrew C. The Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth Century Ibero-African Frontier. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
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One of the earliest systematic challenges to Braudel’s vision of the unity of the Mediterranean; Hess argues that by focusing on the western Mediterranean and what Hess sees as the sharp rift between the Iberian and North African regions, the religious and cultural divisions between east and west and within a much smaller region become evident.
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Horden, Peregrine. “Mediterranean Excuses: Historical Writing on the Mediterranean since Braudel.” History and Anthropology 16 (2005): 25–30.
DOI: 10.1080/0275720042000316650Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A response to anthropological challenges to the category of the Mediterranean, particularly an essay by Michael Herzfeld in Harris 2005. Historiographically traces the ways in which scholars have studied the Mediterranean since Braudel 1972 (cited under General Overviews).
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Marino, John A., ed. Early Modern History and the Social Sciences: Testing the Limits of Braudel’s Mediterranean. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2002.
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A collection of essays that responds to and builds on the wedding of history and the social sciences in Braudel 1972 (cited under General Overviews). Topics treated include geography, economy, military, and political history; law; minorities; and anthropology.
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Religion

Although there is a general tendency toward binary representations of civilizational conflicts when treating Mediterranean religious history, some scholars have emphasized its much more fluid character. Hasluck 1929 is an important early work that illustrates the many shared beliefs and practices of Muslims and Christians. Husain and Fleming 2007 is a more recent collection of essays that develops the same themes. Bulliett 2004 is more theoretical and broad, proposing a provocative reworking of the concept of Judeo-Christian in favor Islamo-Christian civilization.

Bulliet, Richard W. The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
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A provocative work that emphasizes the shared roots and common history of Islam and Christianity and their long history of exchange and cross-pollination. Through a wide-ranging historical survey, takes the hopeful view that this shared history can be the basis for peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims.
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Hasluck, Frederick William. Christianity and Islam under the Sultans. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929.
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An older but still-important work on the intersection of Christian and Muslim religious practice and belief in the early modern Ottoman Empire. Convincingly shows the many transferences in the fluid and heterodox religious world of the Mediterranean.
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Husain, Adnan Ahmed, and Katherine Elizabeth Fleming, eds. A Faithful Sea: The Religious Cultures of the Mediterranean, 1200–1700. Oxford: Oneworld, 2007.
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The essays in this volume examine a range of areas and aspects of the broader Mediterranean religious world of Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Depicts a religiously dynamic and complex world, rather than one characterized by impermeable or fixed religious identities or practices. The introduction is especially insightful.
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Ships and Shipbuilding

Because of their importance in all aspects of Mediterranean life, shipbuilding, maritime trade, and naval warfare have all attracted serious scholarly inquiry. Lewis and Runyan 1985 provides a general survey of maritime history, while Pryor 1992 develops a compelling argument about the implications of environment and maritime technology on political and military events. Lane 1934 is essential reading on the ship industry in Venice, and Concina 1987 contains a broad survey of shipbuilding institutions, including several in the Mediterranean. Guilmartin 1974 is a seminal work on Mediterranean galley warfare; Unger 1980 looks at ships and commerce. Hess 1970 challenges the often Eurocentric character of much Mediterranean maritime scholarship, and insists on the need to bring a broader perspective that includes the Ottoman Empire.

Concina, Ennio, ed. Arsenali e città nell’occidente europeo. Rome: La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1987.
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Collection of essays on shipbuilding and arsenals throughout the Mediterranean and Europe. Examples studied include ones from Venice, Sicily, Pisa, England, and Istanbul.
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Guilmartin, John Francis, Jr. Gunpowder and Galleys. Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century. London: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
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A seminal, myth-busting work on galley warfare in the early modern Mediterranean. Examines in detail tactics and strategy, as well as weapons technology. Also addresses the question of the persistence of the use of galleys by the Ottomans and Habsburgs, despite technological advances in Atlantic ships.
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Hess, Andrew C. “The Evolution of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire in the Age of the Oceanic Discoveries, 1453–1525.” American Historical Review 75 (1970): 1892–1919.
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Argues for the incorporation of Ottoman maritime activities into the larger narrative of European expansion, and against the view of Ottoman and Muslim naval limitations and failures at this critical juncture. Insists on the importance of including both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean in any comparison.
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Lane, Frederic Chapin. Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1934.
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A now-classic study of Venetian shipbuilding and the famed arsenal industrial complex. Also considers developments in maritime technology in Venetian shipping, as well as the social world of the shipbuilders.
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Lewis, Archibald R., and Timothy J. Runyan. European Naval and Maritime History, 300–1500. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.
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Focusing heavily on Mediterranean maritime history, this book provides a broad, interdisciplinary survey of developments in commercial and military shipping from late antiquity to the start of the early modern period. Places these maritime developments into a broader political, social, and cultural context.
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Pryor, John H. Geography, Technology, and War: Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterranean, 649–1571. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
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Argues that sea and weather conditions, combined with the limited capabilities of maritime technology, had a profound influence on historical events, particularly trade and warfare. Winds and currents favored the northern Mediterranean, and this had a significant impact on the outcome of Mediterranean military rivalries.
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Unger, Richard W. The Ship in the Medieval Economy, 600–1600. London: Croom Helm, 1980.
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A useful, if narrow, overview of developments in maritime technology from late antiquity to the early modern period. The Mediterranean figures prominently throughout, though developments in the Muslim world tend to be overlooked.
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Slaves and Corsairs

Mediterranean piracy and slavery have produced a significant corpus of research, particularly on their heyday in the early modern period. Bono 1964 and Davis 2003 both examine slavery from a primarily European position, whereas Marmon 1999 examines the issue from an Islamic perspective. Bono 1999 is important for its treatment of Muslim slaves in Europe. Colley 2002 and Blackburn 1997 place Mediterranean slavery into a global historical context. Tenenti 1967 considers the impact of piracy on Venetian fortunes in the early modern era.

Blackburn, Robin. “The Old World Background to European Colonial Slavery.” William and Mary Quarterly 54 (1997): 65–102.
DOI: 10.2307/2953313Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Useful, broad survey of medieval and Renaissance slavery, primarily focused on Europe, but with much discussion of the Mediterranean and Muslim contexts.
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Bono, Salvatore. I corsari barbareschi. Turin, Italy: Edizion RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana, 1964.
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A detailed overview of the phenomenon of the Barbary corsairs and their profound impact on the early modern Mediterranean. Also includes an extensive discussion of slavery and redemption.
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Bono, Salvatore. Schiavi musulmani nell’Italia moderna: Galeotti, vu’ cumpra’, domestici. Naples, Italy: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 1999.
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Introduces a generally overlooked aspect of Mediterranean slavery—Muslim slaves in Christian Europe. An important corrective to Bono 1964, Davis 2003, and other more one-sided treatments of slavery.
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Colley, Linda. Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, 1600–1850. London: Jonathan Cape, 2002.
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A brilliant comparative study of the captivity experiences of Britons in the Mediterranean, India, and North America. Emphasizes the importance of negotiation and accommodation in addition to force in England’s imperial endeavor.
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Davis, Robert C. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500–1800. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
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An engaging survey of slavery in the Mediterranean, which is often overlooked in favor the transatlantic slave trade. Traces the experience of slaves from captivity through sale to their lives as slaves; also looks at the impact of slaving on societies bordering the Mediterranean. The focus is solidly European, and there is a certain disconnect from the Ottoman context and Muslim slavery.
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Marmon, Shaun E., ed. Slavery in the Islamic Middle East. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1999.
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This brief collection of essays is one of a few works on premodern slavery in the Ottoman Empire, providing an important balance and corrective to the more European-centered literature on this period.
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Tenenti, Alberto. Piracy and the Decline of Venice, 1580–1615. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.
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A somewhat impressionistic study that illustrates the rise in corsair activity in the Adriatic and eastern Mediterranean in the years following the Battle of Lepanto and its impact on Venice. Shows how traditional Mediterranean pirates were supplemented by merchant/pirates from the north, especially the English. The view of Venetian decline is now somewhat dated.
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Sources

Because of its widespread impact, and the fascination with piracy and slavery, early modern writers produced a large number of narratives and other sources about their experiences. Matar 2001 and Vitkus 2001 anthologize a number of English narratives, while Hunwick and Powell 2002 is a collection of sources specific to African slavery in the Muslim Mediterranean.

Hunwick, John, and Eve Troutt Powell. The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2002.
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An essential collection of primary sources that address all aspects of African slavery in the Mediterranean up to the modern period. Includes selections derived from religious treatises, travel narratives, court records, and memoirs.
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Matar, Nabil. “English Accounts of Captivity in North Africa and the Middle East, 1577–1625.” Renaissance Quarterly 54 (2001): 553–572.
DOI: 10.2307/3176787Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines ten accounts produced by English captives in Muslim lands between 1577 and 1625, situating these in the larger political, economic, and religious context of the time.
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Vitkus, Daniel J., ed. Piracy, Slavery, and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
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An engaging selection of excerpts from some of the most significant English narratives of captives and slaves on the early modern Barbary coast.
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Trade and Economy

Mediterranean and Levantine trade has been a focus of scholarly research for well over a century. Heyd 1879 is solidly Eurocentric in its treatment, while Ashtor 1983 develops a more nuanced image that incorporates Arab and Ottoman sources and perspectives. Abu-Lughod 1989 is an important work that challenges traditional economic chronologies by pushing the emergence of a world economy back to the 13th century. Rapp 1975 similarly challenges traditional chronologies of the Mediterranean economy, in this case the decline of the Mediterranean economy and the shift to the Atlantic world. Tabak 2008 takes on the same question from an ecological perspective, and from the experience of smaller mercantile republics. Fleet 1999 and Goffman 1990 are useful case studies of specific ports and trading relationships. Ourfelli 2008 is an illuminating study of the rise and spread of a single Mediterranean commodity: sugar.

Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Before European Hegemony: The World System, A.D. 1250–1350. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
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Argues for relocating the emergence of a world economy from the 13th to the 14th century by showing the commercial system of this earlier period, which stretched from Asia to Europe, with the Mediterranean playing a central role.
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Ashtor, Eliyahu. Levant Trade in the Later Middle Ages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
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Provides a solid and broad chronological survey of the Levantine trade from 1300 to 1500. Based on both Arab and European sources, it develops a more multifaceted picture of the trade in its late medieval heyday than Heyd 1879, which viewed the Levantine trade as a primarily European phenomenon.
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Fleet, Kate. European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State: The Merchants of Genoa and Turkey. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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Through an encyclopedic (though only lightly analytical) examination of the materials and modes of Genoese-Ottoman trade, this work argues for the reciprocal significance of trade on Genoa and the Ottoman state, and for the importance of Genoese capital and expertise in the early development of the Ottoman Empire. Also emphasizes the economic, as opposed to military or jihadist, rationale for the sultans’ expansion.
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Goffman, Daniel. Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550–1650. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990.
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Argues, counterintuitively, that the rise of Izmir as a thriving international port was the result not of growing Ottoman political might, but rather of the opposite—political decline. The weakening of the empire created a series of circumstances that facilitated the rise of Izmir as an important regional center of trade.
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Heyd, Wilhelm. Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter. 2 vols. Stuttgart, Germany: J.G. Cotta, 1879.
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A still-valuable overview of the medieval Levantine trade from the fall of Rome to the early 16th century, this work is easily accessible in the original French translation of 1885, Histoire du commerce du Levant au Moyen Âge (Leipzig, Germany: O. Harrassowitz, 1885). Several reprints also exist, the most recent being from 2009.
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Ouerfelli, Mohamed. Le sucre: Production, commercialisation et usages dans la Méditerranée médiévale. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2008.
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An exhaustive study of the spread of sugar from India throughout the Mediterranean. Traces sugar from its production, trade, and transportation to its varied uses. Utilizes both European and Arab sources, and in doing so creates a complex and complete depiction of the place of this commodity in the broad and interconnected Mediterranean economy in a way that transcends religious and political boundaries.
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Rapp, Richard T. “The Unmaking of the Mediterranean Trade Hegemony: International Trade Rivalry and the Commercial Revolution.” Journal of Economic History 35 (1975): 499–525.
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Argues that the rise of the Atlantic commercial powers was not so much a product of geographical proximity to the Americas but arose, rather, out of these northern powers’ success in establishing an industrial competitive advantage vis-à-vis European competitors and their dominance of the European internal market. The Mediterranean experienced relative, not absolute economic decline.
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Tabak, Faruk. The Waning of the Mediterranean, 1550–1870: A Geohistorical Approach. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
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Examines the transformation of the early modern Mediterranean economy, including the fraught question of decline, but from the perspective of mercantile republics rather than the region’s empires. Places these changes within a global economic setting but also introduces the impact of ecological changes to the equation and shows how traditional agricultural commodities returned to prominence as the Mediterranean’s economic and political standing was transformed.
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Sources

Lopez and Raymond 1955 provides a single collection of sources, albeit largely Italian, for medieval Mediterranean trade and economy.

Lopez, Robert S., and Irving W. Raymond, eds. Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World: Illustrative Documents. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955.
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A pioneering collection of primary sources documenting all aspects of medieval Mediterranean commerce. Italian texts are most numerous, but these are accompanied by Spanish, French, Arabic, and Dalmatian sources. Topics treated include the organization of trade, merchant life, commercial tools, business conflicts, and trade routes.
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