The Mediterranean has always attracted the imagination of modern historians as the epicentre of great political entities, such as the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, Venetians, and Spanish. However, it seems that the sea itself was always on the margins of historical inquiry – at least, until the publication of the famous two-volume work by F. Braudel in 1949. This collection of essays aims to offer a vertical history of war in the Mediterranean Sea, from the early Middle Ages to the early modernity, putting the emphasis on the changing face of several different aspects and...

This book examines the strategies and military tactics of the Byzantines and their enemies in Eastern Anatolia, Syria and in Upper Mesopotamia in the tenth century. This period of conflict is difficult to define: it was too inactive to be called a 'war' but too active to be called a 'cold war'. Nevertheless, it was a 'war', even if it lacked the numerous pitched battles or protracted sieges that defined other periods or other operational theatres of war. This study examines the way the Byzantines innovated and adapted their strategies and tactics to those of their enemies in the East, giving...