The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean

As a 'Medieval Warm Period' prevailed in Western Europe during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the eastern Mediterranean region, from the Nile to the Oxus, was suffering from a series of climatic disasters which led to the decline of some of the most important civilisations and cultural centres of the time. This provocative study argues that many well-documented but apparently disparate events - such as recurrent drought and famine in Egypt; mass migrations in the steppes of central Asia; and the decline in population in urban centres such as Baghdad and Constantinople - are connected and should be understood within the broad context of climate change. Drawing on a wealth of textual and archaeological evidence, Ronnie Ellenblum explores the impact of climatic and ecological change across the eastern Mediterranean in this period, to offer a new perspective on why this was a turning point in the history of the Islamic world.

Author: Ronnie Ellenblum
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 08/02/2012
Pages: 284
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.10w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781107023352

Review Citation(s):
Choice 04/01/2013

About the Author
Ellenblum, Ronnie: - Ronnie Ellenblum is an Associate Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a life member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. He is the author of the prize-winning Crusader Castles and Modern Histories (Cambridge, 2007). His first book, Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge, 1998), has become a standard work for the study of Crusader Geographies.