Book excerpt: This Handbook provides an essential overview of the contemporary dynamics of the Mediterranean region. Conceptualising the Mediterranean as both a socio-cultural area and a geopolitical entity, it considers the basin both as a whole and as a set of interacting subregions. Established scholars offer new perspectives and approaches from international history, postcolonial studies, migration studies, geography, private international law and public international law, environmental and tourism studies, to reappraise the long-term trends and ruptures that shape security, interdependence, and cooperation. These contributions explain the Mediterranean’s long-established role as a crossroads, and demonstrate the political, economic, ecological, and cultural meanings of security. The book shows how interdependence in economic, environmental, cultural, and human sectors continues to bind the Mediterranean together as migration flows across the sea, environmental change requires common action, legal systems coexist, and multifaceted identities, growing cultural awareness and human rights remain on the political agenda. This volume will be an invaluable resource for graduate students, researchers, and professionals seeking a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to the historical, political, geographic, and socio-cultural complexities, challenges, and potential of the area.