16 Facts About David Abulafia

1.

David Abulafia was born on 12 December 1949 and is an English historian with a particular interest in Italy, Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

2.

David Abulafia spent most of his career at the University of Cambridge, rising to become a professor at the age of 50.

3.

David Abulafia retired in 2017 as Professor Emeritus of Mediterranean History.

4.

David Abulafia is a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

5.

David Abulafia is visiting Beacon Professor at the new University of Gibraltar, where he serves on the Academic Board.

6.

David Abulafia is a visiting professor at the College of Europe.

7.

David Abulafia is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the Academia Europaea.

8.

David Abulafia was educated at St Paul's School and King's College, Cambridge.

9.

David Abulafia has published several books on Mediterranean history, beginning with his book The Two Italies in 1977.

10.

David Abulafia has given lectures in many countries including Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Finland, Norway, the United States, Dominican Republic, Japan, China, Israel, the UAE, Jordan, and Egypt.

11.

David Abulafia has been appointed Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity by the President of Italy in recognition of his writing on Italian history, especially Sicilian history, and he has written about Spain, particularly the Balearic islands.

12.

David Abulafia has shown an interest in the economic history of the Mediterranean, and in the meeting of the three Abrahamic faiths in the Mediterranean.

13.

David Abulafia wrote The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans, published by Penguin in the UK and by Oxford University Press in the US in October 2019.

14.

David Abulafia was the chairman of Historians for Britain, an organisation that lobbies to leave the European Union.

15.

David Abulafia has written opinion pieces criticising the UK's membership in the European Union, accusing the idea of European unity of being based upon "historical determinism".

16.

David Abulafia recently wrote a article in the Daily Telegraph titled "It would be uncivilised to give Greece the Elgin Marbles", where he wrote that they belong "in London, in a great universal museum, not in the narrow confines of Athens's Acropolis".