Sicily: A Short History from the Ancient Greeks to Cosa Nostra
‘Sicily is the key to everything’ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the gateway between the East and the West, at once a stronghold, clearing-house and observation-post, Sicily has been invaded and fought over by Phoenicians and Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans, Goths and Byzantines, Arabs and Normans, Germans, Spaniards and the French for thousands of years.
Inspired to become an author by his first visit to the island in 1961, John Julius Norwich’s vivid history of the Mediterranean’s largest island covers everything from erupting volcanoes to the assassination of Byzantine emperors, from Nelson’s affair with Emma Hamilton to Garibaldi and the rise of the mafia. Full of fascinating stories and unforgettable characters, Sicily is the book he was born to write.
A colourful and lavishly illustrated history (fifty years in the making) of the Mediterranean’s largest and most turbulent island from much-loved historian John Julius Norwich
