Such is the paradox that provides David Abulafia, in his magnificent and quite stunningly compendious history of the Mediterranean, with a key to unlocking its rich and turbulent past. The Mediterranean, as it has always done, serves to join as well as divide. Tourists on Lampedusa – if they look out to sea from the beaches and nature reserves of that picturesque Italian island – may well see makeshift boats bobbing towards them, crammed to bursting with refugees from the turmoil in north Africa, a mere 70 miles away. The two halves of the Mediterranean will seem, even more than usual, entire worlds apart.
T his summer, as Europeans sprawl on sunbeds in Málaga and bare their breasts in Faliraki, Libyans will be killing one another.
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