The Black Sea : A History / Charles King.

Bibliographical references included in " Notes" and index.

1. An Archaeology of Place -- People and Water -- Region, Frontier, Nation -- Beginnings -- Geography and Ecology -- 2. Pontus Euxinus, 700 BC-AD 500 -- 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 Expeditionof Flavius Arrianus -- The Prophet of Abonoteichus -- 3. Mare Maggiore, 500-1500 -- "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 -- Sream, Wheat, Rail, and Oil -- " An Ignoble Army of Scribbling Visitors" -- Trouble on the Köstence Line -- The Unpeopling -- "The Division of the Waters" -- Knowing the Sea -- The Prometheans -- Development and Decline -- 7. Facing the Water.

This brisk narrative history takes in the history, culture and politics of the region from 700 B.C. to the 1990s. King argues that, like the Mediterranean, the Black Sea unites diverse languages and cultures (Greek, Roman, Armenian, Persian, Scythian, Byzantine, Ottoman, Tatar and Mongol). The book opens with a chapter on Pontus Euxinus, an ancient Greek site along the shores of the Black Sea.

The lands surrounding the Black Sea share a colorful past. Though in recent decades they have experienced ethnic conflict, economic collapse, and interstate rivalry, their common heritage and common interests run deep. Now, as a region at the meeting point of the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Middle East, the Black Sea is more important than ever. In this lively and entertaining book, which is based on extensive research in multiple languages, Charles King investigates the myriad connections that have made the Black Sea more of a bridge than a boundary, linking religious communities, linguistic groups, empires, and later, nations and states.