The inner sea

by Fox, Robert

Known to the early cartographers as the Inner Sea, the Mediterranean is emerging anew today, its tastes and styles now almost universal. But even as its influence - in the form of everything from politics to cookery, art, design and organized crime - continues to grow throughout the rest of the world, the sea and its people are now witnessing the most dramatic changes in their history. Who are the new Mediterraneans? How do they see themselves and their future, and how will their world change ours? Robert Fox explores these questions in a journey to every country bordering the Inner Sea and the great islands scattered across its waters. In the past five years, he has seen the mountains of Morocco, the deserts of Syria, the sylvan wasteland of Albania, the monasteries of Athos, the slums of Naples, Gaza in riot, Beirut in civil war, Cairo in celebration. He presents each people and country - from France to Libya, from Greece to Malta, from Italy to Israel, and everyone along the way - a