This lively and dramatic book brings roaring to life the grand sweep of 5,000 years of history in the cradle of civilization.A wonderfullyillustrated account of the civilizations that rose and fell on the lands bordering the Mediterranean, "The Middle Sea" represents the culmination of a great historian's unparalleled art and scholarship. John Julius Norwich provides brilliant portraits of the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the French, the Venetians, the Popes, and the pirates of the Gulf. Above all, he deftly traces the intermingling of ancient conflicts and modern sensibilities that shapes life today on the shores of the Middle Sea.