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    Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History
    Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History
    Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History
    Audiobook14 hours

    Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History

    Written by John Julius Norwich

    Narrated by Michael Healy

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    "Sicily," said Goethe, "is the key to everything." It is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the link between the Latin West and the Greek East. Sicily's strategic location has tempted Roman emperors, French princes, and Spanish kings. The subsequent struggles to conquer and keep it have played crucial roles in the rise and fall of the world's most powerful dynasties.

    Yet Sicily has often been little more than a footnote in books about other empires. Here is a vivid, erudite, chronicle of an island and the remarkable kings, queens, and tyrants who fought to rule it. From its beginnings as a Greek city-state to its emergence as a multicultural trading hub during the Crusades, from the rebellion against Italian unification to the rise of the Mafia, the story of Sicily is rich with extraordinary moments and dramatic characters. Writing with his customary deftness and humor, John Julius Norwich outlines the surprising influence Sicily has had on world history and tells the story of one of the world's most kaleidoscopic cultures in a galvanizing, contemporary way.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJul 21, 2015
    ISBN9781494581442
    Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History

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    Reviews for Sicily

    4/5

    45 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A fun romp through the exciting and variegated history of this beautiful, fascinating, unique Island. The reader nails a relaxed mildly sarcastic ring that helps navigate the history. The author does a good job of providing just enough detail for all the huge world history events surrounding the narrative without losing focus on Sicily.

      Visit Sicily, read/listen to this book, then go back.
    • 4/5
      This is a thoroughly readable history of Sicily, putting the island into a European and Mediterranean context. There are lots of asides and anecdotes that, while not strictly necessary for the history, help bring the different people to life across the centuries. Unfortunately for Sicily, her heyday appears to have been in the 12th century, and therefore the bulk of the book has the sense of being a location in decline. The Sicilians are not exactly innocent in this, the nobles act disgracefully, the poor are horribly downtrodden until the rise up and revolt, which they do frequently. unfortunately, little seems to change for the better. This is as much a story of what might have been as what was. At one point, Norwich is describing the mosaics and interior of the Palatine church and goes in detail for a paragraph, At the end of which he says that this is not a guidebook and he'll get back to the history. However the description was as beguiling as a guidebook and I was googling holidays to Sicily - assuming we're ever allowed to go anywhere ever again. From this is appears to be a fascinating place.