The Ancient Shore

Paul Kosmin argues that the coast—not individual shores, but the coast as such—was fundamental to ancient history. The social and natural dynamics of the coast profoundly shaped not just politics and trade but also ancient peoples’ sense of wonder and of self, earning constant philosophical, religious, scientific, and literary attention.

An esteemed historian explores the natural and social dynamics of the ancient coastline, demonstrating for the first time its integral place in the world of Mediterranean antiquity. As we learn from The Odyssey and the Argonauts, Greek dramas frequently played out on a watery stage. In particular, antiquity’s key events and exchanges often occurred on coastlines. Yet the shore was not just a site of conquest and trade. The seacoast was a singular kind of space, integral to the cosmology of the Greeks and their neighbors. In The Ancient Shore, Paul Kosmin reveals the influence of the coast on the inner lives of the ancients: their political thought, scientific notions, artistic endeavors, and myths; their sense of wonder and of self. Kosmin transports readers to a time when the coast was unpredictable, formidable, infinite, and humbling. Shorelines were points of connection and competition that fostered distinctive political identities. It was at the coast—ever violent, ever permeable to predation—that state power ended, and so the coast was fundamental to theories of sovereignty. Then too, the boundary of land and sea symbolized human limitation, making it the subject of constant philosophical, scientific, and religious attention. Expansive and far-reaching, The Ancient Shore is a radically new encounter with people, places, objects, and ideas we thought we knew.