A Brief History of the Mediterranean

Honestly a bit of a slog at times, particularly in the sections where it's just fact after fact in the form of “In 1243, X invaded Y, followed by an invasion by Z in 1301. Meanwhile U, V and W were at war with each other over T.” etc etc. There are long passages like this where it's hard to keep track of who's who. The book does improve once it gets to the past 300 years or so.

The tagline of “Indispensable for Travellers” (presumably added to the title by the publishers rather than the author) is laughable though. Aside from some interesting talk about ancient sites and cruise ship ports, there's really nothing here for the tourist.