This volume reframes current discussions of the Mediterranean world by rereading the past with new methodological approaches. The work asks readers to consider how future studies might write histories of the Mediterranean, moving from the larger pan-Mediterranean approaches of The Corrupting Sea towards locally-oriented case studies. Scholars from several time periods and disciplines interrogate key concepts like cabotage, seascapes, deep time, social networks, and connectivity in the light of contemporary archaeological and theoretical advances in order to create new ways of writing more diverse histories of the ancient world that bring together local contexts, literary materials, and archaeological analysis.

Introduction: a new connectivity for the 21st century / Part 1 Cabotage and Seascapes in the Eastern Mediterranean: Beyond Braudel: network models and a Samothracian seascape, Blakely / Material and textual narratives of authenticity? Creating cabotage and memory in the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean, Mazurek / Part II Markets, Connectivity, and the Movement of Religious Texts: Early Christian connectivity and ecclesial assemblages in Ignatius of Antioch, Concannon / Networks of influence: reconsidering Braudel in archaic Corinth, Ziskowski / Toward a 'text-market' approach to early Christianity, Smith / Part III Contesting the Longue Durée: To obey by land and sea: empires, the Mediterranean, and cultural identity in Hellenistic and Roman Cyprus, Gordon / Imperial surplus and local tastes: a comparative study of Mediterranean connectivity and trade, Caraher and Pettegrew / Subverting Braudel in Dalmatia: religion, landscape, and cultural mediation in the hinterland of the eastern Adriatic, Dzino / Index.