The Silk Roads – A New History of the World

Peter is an Oxford historian, Worcester College Fellow and Head of the Centre for Byzantine Research.His latest book tells the history of the world with its centre not in Europe but in the Middle East and Asia. The story moves from the Mappa Mundi, through mythology, Alexander the Great, the Roman and Venetian empires to more recent times, including Napoleon, the First World War, Suez, the space-race, 9/11 and the battle for the soul of Islam, all viewed from a different perspective, that of the Silk Roads, a centuries-old network for the exchange of ideas.