David Abulafia

David Samuel Harvard Abulafia (born 12 December 1949) is an influential English historian with a particular interest in Italy, Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He has been Professor of Mediterranean History at the University of Cambridge since 2000 and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge since 1974. He was Chairman of the History Faculty at Cambridge University, 2003-5, and was elected a member of the governing Council of Cambridge University in 2008.

He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the Academia Europaea.

Biography

Abulafia was born at Twickenham, England, into a very old Sephardic family that left Spain for Galilee around 1492 and lived for many generations in Tiberias. His wife Anna Sapir Abulafia is a historian of Jewish-Christian relations at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. He was educated at St. Paul's School and King's College, Cambridge.

He has published several books on Mediterranean history, beginning with his book The Two Italies in 1977; here he argued that as far back as the twelfth century northern Italy exploited the agricultural resources of the Italian south, and that this provided the essential basis for the further expansion of trade and industry in Tuscany, Genoa and Venice. He edited volume 5 of the New Cambridge Medieval History and the volume on Italy in the central Middle Ages in the Oxford Short History of Italy; he also edited an important collection of studies of the French invasion of Italy in 1494-5 as well as a book on The Mediterranean in History which has appeared in six languages. He has given lectures in many countries including Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Finland, Norway, the United States, Japan, Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

One of his most influential books is Frederick II: a medieval emperor, first published in England in 1988 and reprinted many times in several Italian editions. Here he looks at an iconic figure from the Middle Ages from a new perspective, criticizing the views of the famous German historian Ernst Kantorowicz concerning Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, whom Abulafia sees as a conservative figure rather than as a genius born out of his time.

He has been appointed Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana by the President of Italy in recognition of his writing on Italian history, especially Sicilian history, and he has also written about Spain, particularly the Balearic islands. He has shown an interest in the economic history of the Mediterranean, and in the meeting of the three Abrahamic faiths in the Mediterranean. Not confining himself to the Mediterranean, he has also written a much-praised book on the first encounters between western Europeans and the native societies of the Atlantic (the Canary islands, the Caribbean and Brazil) around 1492; this book is The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus (2008).

In 2011 Penguin Books (and, in the U.S., Oxford University Press New York) published his The Great Sea: a human history of the Mediterranean, a substantial volume that sets out a different approach to Mediterranean history to that propounded by the famous French historian Fernand Braudel, and ranges in time from 22,000 BC to AD 2010. It rapidly became a bestseller in UK non-fiction and was widely acclaimed:

"This magnificent book ...is teeming with colourful characters. Over the course of nearly 800pp, we follow faiths; sail with fleets; trade with bankers, financiers and merchants; raid with pirates and observe battles and sieges; watch cities rise and fall and see peoples migrate in triumph and tragedy. But at its heart, this is a history of mankind - gripping, worldly, bloody, playful - that radiates scholarship and a sense of wonder and fun, using the Mediterranean as its medium, its watery road much travelled." -- Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Financial Times

"This memorable study, its scholarship tinged with indulgent humour and an authorial eye for bizarre detail, celebrates the swirling changeability at the heart of that wonderful symbiosis of man and nature which once took place long Mediterranean shores" -- Jonathan Keates, Sunday Telegraph

"An Everest of a book, brocaded with studious observation and finely-tuned scholarship...the effect is mesmerising, as detail accumulates meticulously." -- Ian Thomson, Independent

"David Abulafia's marvellous history of the Mediterranean is an excellent corrective to oversimplified views of geopolitics." -- Economist

"New, highly impressive book...magisterial work..." -- Prospect

References

• Who's Who 2011
• Debrett's People of Today 2011

External links

• Works by or about David Abulafia in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Persondata
Name	Abulafia, David
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	12 December 1949
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death

This article about a British historian or genealogist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: 1949 births Living people British historians Jewish historians British Jews Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Historians of the Crusades Sephardi Jews British historian stubs Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая? N. Kerr Thompson Stadium Bunny Bleu Look at other dictionaries: David Abulafia — David Samuel Harvard Abulafia (* 12. Dezember 1949, Twickenham, England) ist Professor für Mittelalterliche Geschichte an der Universität Cambridge und Mitglied („Fellow“) des Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge. Abulafia entstammt einer… …   Deutsch Wikipedia ABULAFIA — (Heb. אַבּוּלְעֲפְיָה; Arabic for father of health ; also Abulaffia, Abulefia, Abualefia, Abu Alafia, etc.), widespread and influential family, members of which were rabbis, poets, statesmen, and communal leaders in Spain. After the expulsion of… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism Abulafia — Ausschnitt aus der Stammtafel der Familie Abulafia. Abulafia ist die latinisierte Version des arabischen Namens أبو العافية, Abu l Afiyya, hebr. אבולעפיה). Unter sephardischen Juden ist er als Familienname weit verbreitet. Namensträger Abraham… …   Deutsch Wikipedia Abulafia (disambiguation) — Abulafia (the Latinized version of the Arabic name أبو العافية, Abu l Afiyya , he. אבולעפיה) can refer to:#Name of a widely scattered Sephardi Jewish family, one of whose branches, for the sake of clearer designation, bore the surname of ha Levi …   Wikipedia ABULAFIA, MEIR — (1170?–1244), talmudic commentator, thinker, and poet; the most renowned Spanish rabbi of the first half of the 13th century. His only son Judah died in 1226, but his grandchildren and great grandchildren through his daughters lived in Toledo… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism ABULAFIA, ḤAYYIM BEN DAVID — (c. 1700–1775), rabbi and codifier. Abulafia, a grandson of Ḥayyim ben Jacob Abulafia, was born either in Jerusalem or in Smyrna. He studied under isaac rappaport , author of Battei Kehunnah. About 1740 he was appointed rabbi of Larissa (Greece) …   Encyclopedia of Judaism ABULAFIA, ḤAYYIM BEN JACOB — (1580–1668), Palestinian talmudist, known as the First. After studying in Safed, Abulafia was ordained by his father in about 1618. In 1628 Abulafia settled in Jerusalem and later moved to Hebron, where despite his advanced age he directed the… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism ABULAFIA, ḤAYYIM NISSIM BEN ISAAC — (1775–1861), rabbi and communal worker, known also, from the initial letters of his name, as Ḥana. Born in Tiberias, he succeeded his father as the head of the Jews of Tiberias. He was for a short time rabbi of Damascus. After the defeat of the… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism ABULAFIA (Bolaffi), EZEKIEL (Hezekiah) DAVID BEN MORDECAI — (18th century), Italian scholar and poet. His family originated in Aquileia, but he himself lived first in Leghorn and then in Trieste, where he married the daughter of R. Isaac Formiggini. He began to write at the age of 13, but his early… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism Hayyim ben Jacob Abulafia — Abulafia Synagogue, Tiberias …   Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”