David Abulafia is Emeritus Professor Mediterranean history at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College and a former Chairman of the Cambridge History Faculty.
His books include Frederick II, The Discovery of Mankind and The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean, which has been translated into a dozen languages.

His most recent work is The Boundless Sea, A Human History of the Oceans.

He is a member of the Academia Europaea and a Fellow of the British Academy, where is Chair of the Medieval Studies Section.