n its review of John Julius Norwich’s “The Middles Sea: A History of the Mediterranean” the Los Angeles Times lauded the historian’s book as “A sweeping saga of human turmoil. . .”
Turmoil. There is perhaps no better word to describe the Mediterranean basin even today. Just go around the rim of the sea. The southern end has captured newspaper headlines that operate under the maxim of “if it bleeds, it leads.” Since 2011, the Mediterranean has been home to the Arab uprisings, the worst civil war of this generation (Syria), and states or territories controlled by terrorist groups – Islamic State, Hezbollah, Hamas. Turmoil might be a generous classification.
There is not really any more tranquility on the north end of the sea. Economic crises and a rise in nationalism have put the whole European project into question. To watch countries devastated by Nazis and fascists just decades ago welcome them back into the political mainstream is astonishing. The rise of nationalism is abetted by yet another crisis that links north and south, the migration crisis. Although the Mediterranean has for its entire history been a great connector of people and civilizations, we are in the midst of perhaps the largest migration across the sea in history.
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Conscience of a Hellene 