Editor’s Introduction

Abstract

In this issue, four scholars working in a broad range of fields offer four different views on warfare as an agent of change in the Mediterranean region. Marcello Pacifico, renowned author of works that argue for Frederick II as a man of two worlds, considers what the history of the thirteenth-century Crusades is, and what that history could have been if the man known as Stupor mundi had won his battle for a realm where two faiths coexisted in peace.In his detailed three-part history of mayorazgo, Andrew Villalon devotes an entire section to the role of warfare in the proliferation of this Spanish institution that originated in the thirteenth century to address the management of the inheritance of property. Late fourteenth-century conflict would ultimately force a confrontation between the Spanish Crown and the elite, resulting in a change in how landed nobility maintained a hold on inherited properties.Examining the effects of the capi da guerra serving in the Venetian army during the seventeenth-century War of Crete, Filip Novosel finds that these veterans of the Thirty Years’ War were at the heart of an exchange of military knowledge in Albania and Dalmatia. Combined with the growing internationalization of European armies of the time, this transfer of expertise both reflected and produced military innovations.And finally, Jonas Hock and Laura Linzmeier propose model practices for the study of island identity in their richly documented inquiry into sardità. As this team of scholars observes, World War I was the first time in the history of Sardinia that communities across the island, historically isolated from each other, experienced a collective identity as Sardinians. This nascent identity was fueled in the postwar period by veterans of the Brigata Sassari, a fighting unit composed of men from all communities in Sardinia, and gave rise to the Partito Sardo d’Azione, a political party that would adopt as its platform self-determination and the protection of a Sardinian identity.All in all, warfare may not make for pleasant companionship in a changing world, but the articles in Mediterranean Studies 31.1 help us appreciate the mechanisms of change activated by these perennial violent confrontations and the transformations they bring about.The contribution of book reviews to this issue is nothing short of splendid. Once again, reviewers remind us of the expanse of the Mediterranean region and the wealth of scholarship available for the study of it. In Mediterranean Studies 31.1, four reviews draw our attention eastward along the Mediterranean basin. Ifigeneia Giannadaki reviews Sexual Labor in the Athenian Courts by Allison Glazebrook. This work offers an in-depth analysis of five speeches on the actual labor of sex laborers, exploring the relationship between sex labor and Athenian society and involving both male and female sex laborers. Joshua Birk’s review of Dynasties Intertwined: The Zirids of Ifriqiya and the Normans of Sicily introduces us to a thought-provoking study by Matt King, who argues that the dynasties of the Zirids and the Normans were deeply intertwined during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, to the extent that the history of neither can be understood without examining the history of the other. In Nazlı Songülen’s review of A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul, edited by Shirine Hamadeh and Çiğdem Kafescioğlu, a compilation of studies of the early modern city is thought to reflect a recent shift of interest to the local scale of phenomena, opening new conceptual avenues for scholars working in premodern non-European contexts. Finally, Jerusalem: History of a Global City, under the direction of Vincent Lemire, is reviewed by Michael Zank. With his team of expert scholars, Lemire has put forth a resolutely clear-eyed urban and local history of this city that exists in so many material and imagined realities by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. On behalf of the scholars whose articles and reviews give this issue its remarkable variety and depth, welcome to Mediterranean Studies 31.1.