"Mediterranean Identities: Environment, Society, Culture" ed. by Borna Fuerst-Bjelis

This book shows the necessity of the interdisciplinary approach to the Mediterranean identity issues. The book stresses the most serious concerns of the Mediterranean today - threats to biodiversity, risks, and hazards - mostly the increasing wildfires and finally depletion of traditional Mediterranean practices and landscapes, as constituent parts of the Mediterranean heritage.

What is the Mediterranean? The perception of the Mediterranean leans equally on the nature, culture, history, lifestyle, and landscape. To approach the question of identity, it seems that we have to give importance to all of these. There is no Mediterranean identity, but Mediterranean identities.
Mediterranean is not about the homogeneity and uniformity, but about the unity that comes from diversities, contacts, and interconnections. The book tends to embrace the environment, society, and culture of the Mediterranean in their multiple and unique interconnections over the millennia, contributing to the better understanding of the essential human-environmental interrelations.

Contents
1 The Mediterranean: The Asian and African Roots of the Cradle of Civilization
2 A Living Force of Continuity in a Declining Mediterranean: The Hospitaller Order of St John in Early Modern Times
3 Nutrient Cycling in the Mediterranean Sea: The Key to Understanding How the Unique Marine Ecosystem Functions and Responds to Anthropogenic Pressures
4 How Landscapes Make Science: Italian National Narrative, The Great Mediterranean, and Giuseppe Sergi’s Biological Myth
5 The Marine Biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea in a Changing Climate: The Impact of Biological Invasions
6 Biodiversity in Central Mediterranean Sea
7 Deep-Sea Biodiversity in the Aegean Sea
8 Exotic Plant Species in the Mediterranean Biome: A Reflection of Cultural and Historical Relationships
9 Amphibians and Reptiles of the Mediterranean Basin
10 Vulnerability of Soil and Water in Mediterranean Agro-Forestry Systems
11 Resilience of Mediterranean Forests to Climate Change
12 Drought-Forest Fire Relationships
13 The Fire in the Mediterranean Region: A Case Study of Forest Fires in Portugal
14 A Common Approach to Foster Prevention and Recovery of Forest Fires in Mediterranean Europe
15 Climate and Urban Morphology in the City of Barcelona: The Role of Vegetation
16 Wheat: A Crop in the Bottom of the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid
17 Mediterranean Diet beyond the Mediterranean Basin: Chronic Disease Prevention and Treatment