The Inner Sea: The Mediterranean and Its People

by Robert Fox

A vivid portrait of the Mediterranean sea and the diverse peoples and cultures that make the region their home discusses threats to the region's environment, turmoil in the Middle East, population... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394574524
• ISBN13: 9780394574523
• Release Date: May 1993
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 575 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.9" x 6.6" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Mediterranean Odyssey

Robert Fox, a defense analyst, historian, and a journalist for the BBC, the London Daily Telegraph, and the Evening Standard, traversed the Mediterranean from 1984 to 1991, visiting all the countries and the islands in "the inner sea". The Mediterranean was termed the "the inner sea" by ancient cartographers, while the ancient Greeks called it "the wine-dark sea" and the ancient Egyptians "the Great Green Sea". The Inner Sea: The Mediterranean and Its People, is his synthesis of the history, cultures, societies, ethnic, religious, and political conflicts in this mosaic of peoples. Fox worked as a journalist and broadcaster since 1967. He was a reporter and correspondent for the BBC from 1968 to 1987. He reported on the Falklands conflict in 1982, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland. He was the chief foreign correspondent and defense analyst for the Daily Telegraph in 1987. He reported from Afghanistan, the Balkans, the Persian Gulf, and the Middle East, covering the Palestinian intifada. He had been a commentator for the Italian journal Corriere della Sera in 1976. In 1982, he wrote Eyewitness Falklands, his analysis of the conflict between Britain and Argentina. His other works include Camera in Conflict (1995) on the impact and role of photojournalism in military conflicts, and War and Truth: Reporting and History. Fox examined the Mediterranean mosaic of peoples and cultures and societies in what is a history, travelogue, and journalist's notebook. He analyzed the crime syndicates in Italy, tribal conflicts, culture clashes along the Nile Delta in Egypt, the population explosion in the Moghreb, clan organizations and the development of radical religious groups and movements. He also addressed the issue of pollution and the threat that tourism poses to the fragile ecosystem of the region. He noted the impact of pollution: "The most conspicuous inanimate victim is the Parthenon, bandaged in scaffolding against the mordant smog." Fox begins his odyssey in Spain: Andalusia, Toledo, Barcelona, and Majorca. He assessed the cultural revival of the Catalonia region of Spain. He then travels to Narbonne and the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France, then to Marseille and Corsica. In Provence, he noted how the past endured in the present. From there he visits the northern Italian cities of Milan, Genoa, Venice, and finally, to Naples. He then moved to the Mezzogiorno, the south, to Calabria and finally to Sicily and Sardinia. In Italy, he analyzed the endemic political corruption and organized crime syndicates. Fox traveled to Yugoslavia and the Adriatic coast in the 1980s when the Yugoslav federation became politically and economically unstable. He reported from Yugoslavia at the time of the breakup which began in 1991 and provided eyewitness accounts of the beginning of the civil war in Croatia. He visited first Veneto and Trieste and described the population displacements there following World War II when a shooting war between Yugoslavia