Geschichte der Welt Agrarische und nomadische Herausforderungen

THE LONG AWAITED FINAL VOLUME

The epoch between 600 and 1350 is the focus of the long-awaited last volume of the 'History of the World' by C.H.Beck and Harvard University Press. It is dedicated to a time when the earth still offered so much space that individuals, groups and whole societies could exist in isolation from each other. Australia and Oceania were not yet connected at all, America barely perceptibly with developments in Europe, Africa and Asia. But in Eurasia, people participated in ever greater numbers in the transport of goods, writing systems, ideas and religions over thousands of kilometres, but also asserted power and rule on their trains &ndash, hardly different from the American double continent.

While European, Indian, Japanese and Chinese historiographers see this period as an age of political fragmentation and unrest, representatives of indigenous American, Muslim and African approaches to history tend to see it as a time of political, economic and cultural autonomy and flowering that preceded the negative effects of European colonialism. The fact that it was in any case the time when the isolation of hitherto unconnected regions of the world was coming to an end, and how this process took place, is excitingly and vividly recounted by outstanding historians in this book.

• The conclusion of the 'History of the World' in 6 volumes, edited by Akira Iriye and J&uuml,rgen Osterhammel.

• A contemporary look at world history

• With contributions by Christopher S. Beekman, Michael Borgolte, Daniel G. K&ouml,nig, Fran&ccedil,ois-Xavier Fauvelle, Justin Jennings, Michael D. Mathiowetz, Naomi Standen and Andr&eacute, Wink.