In this comprehensive and compelling narrative, award-winning archaeologist Cyprian Broodbank offers a new vision of the rise of the Mediterranean world from its beginnings, before the emergence of our own species, up to the threshold of Classical times. The Mediterranean region has a history spanning millennia and a sea that borders three continents. It has long been a diverse melting pot of cultures and one of the global cockpits of human endeavor. While several outstanding interpretations of its Classical and subsequent history exist, 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 that shaped these originated well before 500 BCE.

Extensively illustrated, this book is a masterpiece of archaeological and historical writing that draws on a wide range of sources, from ancient texts and the cutting-edge science of climate change and genetics to richly informative Mediterranean archaeology. Broodbank considers the varied interactions between inhabitants of southern Europe, western Asia, north Africa, and the islands at the Mediterranean's heart, broadening the traditional historical focus to explore the multi-cultural exchange that forged this maritime world. The text sheds new light on well-trodden topics such as ancient Egypt, the early Levant, the Minoan and Mycenaean Aegean, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Etruscans, reconfiguring these within a broader Mediterranean framework.

Featuring a significant new preface that highlights the latest game-changing research, The Making of the Middle Sea remains a classic text that illuminates the dynamics of ancient Mediterranean life and their enduring impact on later history, our present, and our future.