Now if you think about how such a history would be written, it would be immediately clear that it would end up being a very European history, that peeks into the Asian events once or twice, especially through the peephole that is the Suez Canal.
That is the strength of narrative histories that are also thematic.Ībulafia has instead focused on exactly what his title says "A history of the Mediterranean region" which is further circumscribed by limiting it to the human aspect of it, ie., to the communities that lived on its shores, the trade that crossed its surface, the privacy that disrupted it often, the rivalries for its control and the political alliances and stories that flourished around the great central sea of European history. Unless a reader is only looking to be informed in a general way about what he is reading, it is the argumentative flow that keeps him/her engaged. Why would an articulate historian write such a well-researched book that summarises 1000s of years of history, without having an overarching theme to be supported by all that effort? Most of the popular expansive history books (think Sapiens, think GGS, etc.) are actually organised around powerful central themes that allow the reader to engage with the history being told - to have solid reasons to stay engaged with it.
It is strange to read such an expansive history book and realise there is no real theme to the book.
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