Why the Mediterranean?

Abstract

The Mediterranean has now become broadly accepted as a frame of analysis in literature, history, and social studies, and particularly among European scholars. Nevertheless, there remains significant resistance to its use among medieval historians within Anglo-American spheres. Typical objections include the intimation that it does not reflect historical reality the way that established paradigms such as “Europe ,” and the “Islamic World” do, that it is a consequence of an urge to “Political Correctness ,” rather than a response to the data of history. However, while it may not offer a historical unity in terms such as institutional history, the present chapter argues that there are many underlying unities that mark the region as historically and cultural coherent, and that deploying it as a frame allows us to answer questions that traditional approaches do not.