The Mediterranean Basin (World's Political Hot Spots)

The lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea contain some of the oldest cultures on Earth. Italy and the other countries of Europe and North Africa have played a central role in various expanding empires, and also in shrinking fortunes. This presentation explores the broad sweep of history in one of the cradles of civilization.

The World's Political Hot Spots Series explains the basis of conflicts in some of the world's most politically sensitive areas. Many of these regions are in today's headlines, and tensions recently have become violent in virtually all of them. Each presentation covers up to ten centuries of background, revealing how and why today's problems occur.

Ralph Raico is professor emeritus of European history at Buffalo State College in New York. He received his doctorate from the University of Chicago, Committee on Social Thought, where the head of his dissertation committee was Friedrich Hayek. He has written numerous articles and essays in scholarly journals and is the translator of Ludwig von Mises' Liberalism and of essays contained in Hayek's Collected Works. Dr. Raico was editor of the New Individualist Review and senior editor of Inquiry. He has lectured throughout Europe, the United States, and Canada and is a senior faculty member at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.