The Corrupting Sea is a history of the relationship between people and their environments in the Mediterranean region over some 3,000 years. It offers a novel analysis of this relationship in terms of microecologies and the often extensive networks to which they belong.

Peregrine Horden is Wellcome Trust Research Lecturer in the History of Medicine, Royal Holloway, University of London. Nicholas Purcell is Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, St John's College, Oxford. They began studying Mediterranean history when both were Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford.