Unlike Abulafia’s The Great Sea , Horden and Purcell refuse to tell a linear story. There are no chapters on "The Greek Dark Age" or "The Rise of Islam." Instead, the book is thematic. This makes it brilliant for scholars but infuriating for undergraduates.
Is it a perfect book? No. It is repetitive, dry, and deliberately anti-narrative. It will not tell you what happened in the Punic Wars. the corrupting sea a study of mediterranean history pdf
Terms like "microregionalism," "connectivity," and "abatement" are used relentlessly. A PDF version is essential because you will need to use the search function constantly. Unlike Abulafia’s The Great Sea , Horden and
If you search for a PDF of The Corrupting Sea , do so not to avoid buying it, but to engage with it—using digital tools to dissect a work that argues, paradoxically, that the digital age is just a faster version of the Bronze Age sea. Is it a perfect book
The title comes from the idea that the sea corrupts because it tempts communities to abandon self-sufficiency. On land, a farmer can control his harvest. At sea, he is subject to storms, pirates, and the fickle winds. Yet, the potential for profit (grain from Egypt, silver from Spain, tin from Cornwall) is so intoxicating that it "corrupts" the pure, simple life of agrarian localism.