Based on extensive research in multiple languages, this book is an innovative and indispensable guide to the history, cultures, and politics of the fascinating Black Sea area and its future at the heart of Europe and Eurasia. Charles King breaks new ground in demonstrating how a region often thought of as a zone of timeless conflict has experienced long periods of integration and co-operation.

1. An Archaeology of Place ; People and Water ; Region, Frontier, Nation ; Beginnings ; Geography and Ecology ; 2. Pontus Euxinus, 700BC - AD400 ; The Edge of the World ; "Frogs Around a Pond" ; "A Community of Race" ; How a Scythian Saved Civilization ; The Voyage of Argo ; "More Barbarous Than Ourselves" ; Pontus and Rome ; Dacia Traiana ; The Expedition of Flavius Arrianus ; The Prophet of Abonoteichus ; 3. Mare Maggiore, 400 - 1460 ; "The Scythian Nations Are One" ; Sea-Fire ; Khazars, Rhos, Bulgars, and Turks ; Business in Gazaria ; Pax Mongolica ; The Ship from Caffa ; Empire of the Comneni ; Turchia ; An Ambassador from the East ; 4. Kara Deniz, 1500 - 1700 ; "The Source of All the Seas" ; "To Constantinople - to be sold!" ; Domn, Khan, and Derebey ; Sailors' Graffiti ; A Navy of Seagulls ; 5. Chernoe More, 1700 - 1860 ; Sea and Steppe ; A Flotilla on Azov ; Cleopatra Processes South ; The Flight of the Kalmoucks ; A Season in Kherson ; Rear Admiral Dzhons ; New Russia ; Fever, Ague, and Lazaretto ; A Consul in Trabzon ; Crimea ; 6. Black Sea, 1860 - 1990 ; Empires, States, and Treaties ; Steam, Wheat, Rail, and Oil ; "An Ignoble Army of Scribbling Visitors" ; Trouble on the Kostence Line ; The Unpeopling ; "The Division of the Waters" ; Knowing the Sea ; The Prometheans ; Development and Decline ; 7. Facing the War ; Bibliography

`Review from previous edition both scholarly and enjoyable.' Lloyd's List `In this timely book Charles King provides a stretchy timeline for the murky pool (once a lake, now a tideless sea) which has always sat on the edge of everything: Europe, Asia, civilisation, barbarism, us and other... This is an essential book for anyone who feels they ought to know about what used to be called "the eastern question" and worries, secretly, that it is too late to start finding out.' The Guardian `A solid work by an academic historian, writing for the general educated public. He is particularly good on little known or forgotten episodes - the part played by Westerners in the development of the area. King is well placed to see through the myths of nationalists ... he has a good eye also for the victims of history. King's work has all the virtues of good American scholarship ... vast array of sources, ... a transatlantic detachment, and the recent and very welcome fashion for elegant prose.' Andrew Mango, TLS `The collapse of the Soviet Union restored two great geostrategic arenas long buried in now-defunct empires or pushed to the margin by Cold War alignments. The first is Inner Asia, an immense hinterland stretching from the Chinese borderlands, across the Siberian south, to the Hindu Kush. The second is the Black Sea, a junction where the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Middle East meet. (Say no more.) To appreciate what this re-embodiment means one needs a special vantage point. King traces the Black Sea's many political incarnations from the Greeks and Scythians to the Romans, the Byzantine Christians, the Ottomans, the Russians, and the tumult of the twentieth century. Even when fractured and populated with weak and troubled states (as now), the region, King argues in this mind-broadening book, coheres-and deserves to be thought about and approached accordingly.' Foreign Affairs `A masterful account of the ever-changing trade between the peoples and the powers of this crucial waterway.' Orlando Figes `In this admirable book Professor King gives a cool authoritative and discerning description of the Black Sea...he writes with clarity, humour and perception, enlivens his text with much unfamiliar detail,a nd in a masterly survey covers the entire history of the region from Antiquity to the present day.' Geoffrey Scammell, Pembroke College, Cambridge

First ever comprehensive history of the Black Sea Timely, fitting in with international attempts to resurrect the idea of the Black Sea as a unified region Based on an extensive array of sources in a number of languages Written in an accessible manner for specialists and non-specialists alike

First ever comprehensive history of the Black Sea Timely, fitting in with international attempts to resurrect the idea of the Black Sea as a unified region Based on an extensive array of sources in a number of languages Written in an accessible manner for specialists and non-specialists alike