Professor David Abulafia FBA

  • College positions:
    Life Fellow
    Papathomas Professorial Fellow
    Former Fellow Librarian
  • University positions:
    Professor of Mediterranean History
  • Subjects: History

Degrees

MA in History (Cambridge), PhD in History (Cambridge), LittD (Cambridge)

Awards and prizes

CBE, King's Birthday Honours (2023)

Wolfson History Prize (2020)

British Academy Medal (2013)

Commendatore dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana (Italian Republic, 2004)

Elected to Academia Europaea (2002)

Research interests

I have been writing a series of big maritime histories for Penguin Books. Much of my work has concerned the Mediterranean at all periods but especially in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and above all Italy and Spain; I have also written extensively about attitudes to non-Christians in medieval Europe and the early Atlantic world. My books include Frederick II: a medieval emperor (1988), The Mediterranean in History (2003), Italy in the central Middle Ages (2004), The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic encounters in the age of Columbus (2008), The Great Sea: a human history of the Mediterranean (2011) and The Boundless Sea: a human history of the Oceans (2019). I am now writing about the history of several other seas, particularly the Black Sea.

Other interests

Travel