Perhaps one way to explain the current process of reconnection in the Mediterranean world is to revisit its geography. How geography dominated the Mediterranean world is explicitly shown in the extent of the conquest the Romans carried out. European colonization, followed by two devastating world wars, again increased the connectedness of the Mediterranean world. But, again, the interconnectedness of the Mediterranean world diminished thereafter, until the Syrian and Libyan conflicts in the early 2010s again reignited the idea. What we now see in the Mediterranean world with the migrant crisis is what has been happening in the region for centuries with various intensity.

Source: The North Africa Journal October 12, 2017 14:26 UTC