Were frontier lands in the central Mediterranean “isolated worlds”? The island of Malta as a case study

Abstract

In his book, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Reign of Philip II, Fernand Braudel defines the islands of the Mediterranean as «isolated worlds» and «lands of hunger». These definitions carry pragmatic implications that may appear contentious if put under the lens of micro-history. Braudel himself recognizes the limitation of these statements, as he considers it appropriate to exclude Sicily from the above description. Indeed, such definitions, while carrying political and economic implications, do not necessarily reflect all the historical realities of the Mediterranean islands, in particular if the latter happen to be frontier territories. In this paper, I propose to study these concepts within the framework of Maltese history, in particular from 1530s up to the early eighteenth century, when the island of Malta can really be said to exemplify the notion of 'frontier lands'. This is not the first study on the Braudelian idea of 'isolated worlds' as applicable to the Maltese island. Victor Mallia-Milanes studied this concept in relation to other Braudelian ideas, such as that of 'land of hunger' or that the inhabitants of such lands were 'prisoners of their poverty'. What I am proposing in this paper is to build on Mallia-Milanes' study entitled Was Early Modern Malta an (Isolated World?, and at the same time, relate this concept of 'isolated worlds' to that of 'frontier territories'.