This book is a tour de force in its coverage of ancient Mediterranean cities and their wider contexts.

The intended readership is not specified but the book would appeal to both the general reader and students of the archaeology and history of the ancient Mediterranean. It complements Scarre's The Human Past (Reference Scarre2018) in its coverage, though differs from that volume in its focus on ancient Mediterranean cities. Woolf also emphasizes the role of sea travel as an influence in connectivity picking up themes and case studies considered in Horden and Purcell's (Reference Horden and Purcell2000) The Corrupting Sea, and Broodbank's (Reference Broodbank2013) The Making of the Middle Sea, while also touching on other similar publications such as Knapp and van Dommelen (Reference Knapp and van Dommelen2015). These references make an accessible introduction to those volumes. Woolf's writing style is clear, eloquent, and concise given the wealth of material covered.

At the core of the book lies a concern with the precariousness of ancient cities and urban life, alongside a claim that humans are ‘preadapted’ to urban living and an awareness of the role of seafaring in the development and continuation of ancient Mediterranean cities. Woolf's focus is on the small scale of ancient Mediterranean cities in comparison with modern cities, and he highlights how late a phenomenon urbanism is in the context of the human past (attributable to the last 10,000 years), challenging the urban ideal perpetuated throughout the postclassical period. Using evolutionary theory, the author brings together a range of recent studies and approaches utilized in the humanities, social sciences, and biology to relate a new perspective on ancient cities. The book has an ‘evolutionary agenda’, the usefulness of which Woolf leaves his reader to decide, with ‘cultural [and technological] evolution taking over from biological evolution’ (p. xv). The Afterword returns to and summarizes these issues.

There is a clear regional and chronological bias in the book, and the case studies are selective, an approach which is explained in the Preface, with the emphasis on cities and urban worlds as sociological rather than architectural or political historical entities (p.xiii). The book has a broad but clearly defined regional and chronological scope, largely exploring cities in the eastern and central Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages.

The book is divided into four parts, the first three each consisting of six bite-size (c. seventeen page) chapters, which make the book easily readable. Part 1 considers urban development on a global scale, arguing that humans are ‘preadapted’ to urban life (p. xii), which is arguably not the case given the extent of non-urban settlements for much of human history. However, the focus of Part 1 is on the prehistory of the ancient Near East where urban worlds grew rapidly and paved the way for the development of urbanism in the eastern and central Mediterranean. Part 2 explores the growth of cities around the Mediterranean Sea and their relationship and connectivity with the wider landscape and societies. Part 3 considers the rise of empires. Part 4 is a two-chapter coda which introduces arguments for the decline of the ancient city and the ancient Mediterranean city's legacy in the postclassical period. Woolf's approach is to use archaeological evidence and methods drawn from human geography, demography, and environmental science rather than over-emphasizing the portrayal of cities found in ancient literature.

The book is extensively researched and the bibliography directs readers to the most relevant publications on ancient Mediterranean cities. The endnotes are relatively sparse and including more would direct the reader more easily to the relevant bibliography. The end matter includes suggestions for further reading which contextualizes debates, theories, and approaches regarding the city, both ancient and modern, key publications including Weber's The City (Reference Weber1958), Childe's ‘The Urban Revolution’ (Reference Childe1950), Finley's The Ancient Economy (Reference Finley1973), Michael E. Smith's edited volume The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Soieties (Reference Smith2012), and Zuiderhoek's The Ancient City: Key Themes in Ancient History (Reference Zuiderhoek2016), as well as a timeline running from 2.5 million years bp to ad 661 that highlights key events/moments in global urban development. The bibliography is wide-ranging, comprehensive, and up to date at the time of writing.

Part 1 takes a global overview of cities, beginning with a definition of the purpose of the volume. There is a nod to Childe's (Reference Childe1950) concept of ‘urban revolution’ and his criteria for defining a city: social hierarchy and differentiation, but also cooperation, monumental buildings, a range of supporting/supported infrastructures (trade, craft specialisation). Woolf excludes size from his categorization, as Neolithic settlements could be large but lacked the other criteria (for critiques of Childe see, for example, Creekmore & Fisher, Reference Creekmore and Fisher2014; Smith, Reference Smith2012). Part 1 is a synthesis of the evolution of cities globally and is wide-ranging in its geographical and temporal scope, ground which is also covered in Chris Scarre's The Human Past: hominid evolution, the Holocene, Uruk cited as the best example of a farming culture which becomes urbanised, and ending with the Bronze Age. Woolf's synthesis benefits from its narrower focus on cities and a more systematic comparative approach than Scarre's volume.

Part 2 focuses on the urbanization of the Mediterranean. Like Part 1, Woolf begins with the environmental context and the transition from farming communities to urbanization in a broad geographical range. He then moves onto specific case studies: Cyprus and Crete, Mycenaean and Aegean seafaring, and Etruscan cities. These are followed by an interlude which focuses on written sources for urbanization in the Iron Age, taking the reader from Etruria to Western Greece, but contextualised by evidence for Greek and Phoenician seafaring, with Egypt also given some attention. The interactions between Greece and Italy dominate the rest of this part of the book, focusing on how sea travel catalysed the movement of ideas and practices, particularly monumentalized religious buildings and the increasing dominance of political elites. The Persian empire is also given some consideration. This introduces Part 3, which focuses on ancient Mediterranean empires, primarily the Macedonian, Athenian and Roman empires, and also touching on the Near East, North Africa (Carthage, Alexandria), Gaul, and Iberia.

Part 3 moves from cities to city-states and empires, although attention is largely given to the monumentalization of urban space and the footprints left as ‘ghosts of cities’ in modern urban environments. Those monuments and spaces (such as a forum or agora, temple, theatre) define a city. This part of the book has a thematic rather than chronological structure, which is arguably confusing. The primary case study is the Roman empire which is, however, treated with a light touch and best read alongside Woolf's Rome: an empire's story (Reference Woolf2021).

Part 4 digs deeper into empires than Part 3 promises, and considers the post-classical period (primarily, Byzantium and the fall of the Roman empire). It zooms out to put cities in the wider context of their support network (largely economic), returning us to some of the contextual points raised in Part 1. Climate change and epidemics are put to the fore as reasons for the demise of cities and empires, bringing the argument back to evolutionary theory in the current context of a global pandemic.

Woolf's narrative provides a fresh and accessible perspective on the cities of the ancient Mediterranean. He is particularly effective at summarising the wealth of research into ancient cities and contextualizing the urban phenomenon in a broader geographical and temporal framework. The book has an overtly evolutionary agenda, which Woolf encourages his reader to challenge.

The printed book is published on poor quality paper and includes a limited number of low-resolution images (figures and maps), but this makes the hardback affordable at £25.00.

Overall, this book represents a robust scholarly achievement and is recommended for anyone interested in the evolution and decline/demise of ancient cities in the Mediterranean. It melds old and new scholarship and approaches, and consequently presents a full survey of research into the ancient Mediterranean city.