Backlight

Let me first make it clear, I love a good historical book. A good historical book with a specific focus in mind, for example Peter Ackroyd's magnificent book on the history of London. This isn't one of them, it might be because I was reading it as a hardback rather than a paperback but it just didn't really grab me completely and utterly but in parts it was fascinating.

A history of humanity and it's growth within the Mediterranean is a hugely ambitious topic to write about. If this book had been about a specific period it would have worked but as an over-arching book it was just too cumbersome for me.

To give an idea, the first 230 odd pages go from 2200BC to 600AD. This is obviously the period that fascinates Prof. Abulafia but took me absolutely ages to get through and I'm sure I didn't understand all the various tribes and groups in this period. Whilst the period from 1830 to 2010 is dealt with in under 100 pages, an equal amount of time per period just doesn't happen and this was probably down to the editing. It just feels out of balance as a history.