Il Mediterraneo romano fra connettività e frammentazione

The Corrupting Sea by Horden and Purcell, with its ecological perspective, has been guiding the debate on Mediterranean history over the last fifteen years, especially in the English-speaking world; however, it does not seem to have had a similar impact on Italian historians of the ancient world. Against the idea of a never-changing history until modernization, Italian historiography insists on discontinuities and breaks characterizing the evolution of Mediterranean space from antiquity to contemporary times. In particular, it is important to emphasize the impact that its political unification had on ‘connectivity’, something occurred only once in Mediterranean history, although lasting for seven centuries. It is indeed during this long period of stability when the whole Mediterranean basin enjoyed a level of prosperity no to be attained again prior to modernization.

La storia del Mediterraneo si risolve nella storia della sua connettività ed è pertanto tutt'altro che immobile. L'unificazione politica del Mediterraneo ha avuto effetti decisivi sull'evoluzione della sua economia.