This is a narrative history of a sea which brings together three continents and has been the cradle of Western civilization. The author recounts the Roman, Byzantine, Arab and Turkish conquests of the sea, continuing with the compelling story of its trade, commerce, flora and fauna until 1945.

Oorspr. uitg.:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971. Book 1: an island; the sea and the land; early mariners; Etruscans and Greeks; the island battlefield; Greeks, Phoenicians, and Etruscans; Persians and Greeks; ships and the men; the second round; after the war. Book 2: goddess and island; two sides of a Greek coin - Athens and Sparta; the Peloponnesian War; Greece and the East; Romans and Carthaginians; Romans and Greeks; the Roman Sea; portrait of a city; Romans, Jews and Christians;; Rome and Constantinople - the pendulum swings east; the navel of the sea. Book 3: the troubled sea; Byzantium and the sea; west and east; invasion of the Arabs; Arabs and Vikings; the Arabic centuries; Normans and Arabs; crusades; Knights of Saint John; the fall of Byzantium; the maritime republics; triumphs in the east and west; the Turkish Sea; Preveza, Malta, Lepanto. Book 4 Islands under the sun; Dutch, English, and Corsairs; Gibraltar; a ship-of-the-line; French and English; Napoleon and Nelson; after the war; islands and English; mid-Victorian; the great transformation; another century; peace - and war again; time and the ocean.