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Slowly but surely, the direction in which the world spins has reversed- where for the last five centuries the globe turned westwards on its axis, it now turns to the east.

For centuries, fame and fortune were to be found in the west - in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of riches and adventure. Sweeping right across Central Asia and deep into China and India, a region that once took centre stage is again rising to dominate global politics, commerce and culture.
A major reassessment of world history, The Silk Roads is a dazzling exploration of the forces that have driven the rise and fall of empires, determined the flow of ideas and goods and are now heralding a new dawn in international affairs.",{"_817":836,"_819":1044,"_790":1045},"audience","Trade",{"_817":836,"_819":847,"_790":1047},"Bloomsbury Publishing Plc",{"_817":836,"_819":824,"_790":850},{"_817":836,"_819":852,"_790":853},{"_817":836,"_819":855,"_790":856},{"_817":836,"_819":858,"_790":1052},"COLONIALISM & IMPERIALISM; ASIAN HISTORY; SOCIOLOGY; SOCIAL & CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, ETHNOGRAPHY; ECONOMICS; SOCIOLOGY: CUSTOMS & TRADITIONS; GENERAL & WORLD HISTORY",{"_817":836,"_819":861,"_790":1054},"2016-06-01",{"_817":836,"_819":864,"_790":1056},"656",{"_817":836,"_819":827,"_790":1058},"Bloomsbury Paperbacks",{"_817":867,"_819":350,"_790":868},{"_817":867,"_819":731,"_790":868},{"_817":867,"_819":871,"_790":876},{"_817":867,"_819":873,"_790":838},{"_817":867,"_819":875,"_790":876},{"_817":867,"_819":878,"_790":1065},"27/10/2026",{"_817":867,"_819":881,"_790":1067},"15/09/2026",{"_817":867,"_819":883,"_790":1069},"30.0",{"_817":867,"_819":885,"_790":1069},{"_817":867,"_819":887,"_790":1072},"3",{"_817":867,"_819":890,"_790":1074},"0",{"_817":893,"_819":894,"_790":1076},"History",{"_817":893,"_819":350,"_790":1076},{"_817":893,"_819":731,"_790":895},{"_817":893,"_819":900,"_790":1080},"HISTOR",{"_817":893,"_819":902,"_790":1080},{"_817":893,"_819":904,"_790":748},{"_817":893,"_819":906,"_790":914},{"_817":893,"_819":909,"_790":914},{"_817":893,"_819":911,"_790":907},{"_817":893,"_819":913,"_790":914},{"_817":893,"_819":916,"_790":914},{"_817":893,"_819":918,"_790":914},{"_817":893,"_819":920,"_790":921},{"_817":893,"_819":923,"_790":921},{"_817":893,"_819":925,"_790":926},{"_817":893,"_819":928,"_790":926},{"_817":893,"_819":930,"_790":926},{"_767":1095},[1096],{"_770":116,"_771":-5,"_130":1097,"_209":1098,"_781":1102,"_787":1103,"_17":1105,"_791":1106,"_793":1107},"gid://shopify/ProductVariant/43582877302981",{"_774":1099,"_776":777,"_130":1100,"_35":1022,"_779":1101},"Silk Roads : A New History of the World Cover Image","gid://shopify/ProductImage/34877965304005",1327,{"_783":784,"_785":1069},[1104],{"_752":753,"_790":1105},"Default Title","9781408839997",{"_795":1108},[1109,1112],{"_798":1110},{"_800":116,"_133":1111},{"_752":347},{"_798":1113},{"_800":116,"_133":1114},{"_752":729},{"_130":1116,"_17":1117,"_742":1118,"_762":1119,"_814":1121,"_765":1180},"gid://shopify/Product/10329450479813","How the World Made the West: A 4,000-Year History","how-the-world-made-the-west-a-4-000-year-history",{"_35":1120},"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0625/6679/3413/files/978-1-5266-0522-1.jpg?v=1790475020",[1122,1123,1125,1126,1127,1128,1129,1130,1132,1134,1136,-5,1138,1140,1141,1142,-5,1143,1145,1147,-5,1149,1150,1151,1152,1153,1154,1156,1157,1159,1160,1161,1163,1164,1165,1166,1167,1168,1169,1170,1171,1172,1173,1174,1175,-5,1176,1177,1178,1179],{"_817":818,"_819":17,"_790":1117},{"_817":818,"_819":821,"_790":1124},"QUINN JOSEPHINE",{"_817":818,"_819":824,"_790":1028},{"_817":818,"_819":827,"_790":1030},{"_817":818,"_819":830,"_790":831},{"_817":818,"_819":833,"_790":834},{"_817":836,"_819":837,"_790":838},{"_817":836,"_819":17,"_790":1131},"How the World Made the West",{"_817":836,"_819":1037,"_790":1133},"'World History at Its Best' Simon Sebag Montefiore",{"_817":836,"_819":821,"_790":1135},"Josephine Quinn",{"_817":836,"_819":844,"_790":1137},"

'One of the most fascinating and important works of global history to appear for many years' William Dalrymple

'Quinn has done a lot more than reinvent the wheel. What we have here is a truly encyclopaedic and monumental account of the ancient world' The Times

Ancient Greece and Rome are considered the parents of Western civilisation. But the ancient world was much more interconnected than we realise - a place of constant exchange, commerce and theft, sex, war and enslavement.

Journeying from the Levant of 2500 BC to the dawn of the Age of Exploration, Josephine Quinn argues that the roots of the West can be found in everything from Indian mathematics to the chariots of the Steppe, from Arabic poetry to the Phoenician art of sailing. The result is an epic and revelatory history of our shared past.

'Superb, refreshing and full of delights, this is world history at its best' Simon Sebag-Montefiore
'Full of little gem-like shifts of perspective' Guardian
'Scintillates with its focus on the unexpected' Economist
'A work of great confidence, empathy, learning and imagination' Rory Stewart
'This is, in every way, a big book' Times Literary Supplement

LONGLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2025
A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: The Times/Sunday Times, Observer, Economist, Guardian, BBC History Magazine, i-paper and History Today

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'An ebullient, irrepressible spirit invests this book. It is erudite and sprightly'Sunday Times

From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes--here is award-winning writer Simon Winchester's brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds.

With the advent of the internet, any topic we want to know about is instantly available with the touch of a smartphone button. With so much knowledge at our fingertips, what is there left for our brains to do? At a time when we seem to be stripping all value from the idea of knowing things - no need for maths, no need for map reading, no need for memorisation - are we risking our ability to think? As we empty our minds, will we one day be incapable of thoughtfulness?

Addressing these questions, Simon Winchester explores how humans have attained, stored and disseminated knowledge. Examining such disciplines as education, journalism, encyclopedia creation, museum curation, photography and broadcasting, he looks at a whole range of knowledge diffusion - from the cuneiform writings of Babylon to the machine-made genius of artificial intelligence, by way of Gutenberg, Google and Wikipedia to the huge Victorian assemblage of the Mundaneum, the collection of everything ever known, currently stored in a damp basement in northern Belgium.

Studded with strange and fascinating details, Knowing What We Know is a deep dive into learning and the human mind. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom? Does René Descartes' 'Cogito, ergo sum'--'I think, therefore I am', the foundation for human knowledge widely accepted since the Enlightenment--still hold?

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You'll learn a lot (I did) and you'll have good reason to feel better about the human race' Tim Harford'Made me see humanity from a fresh perspective' Yuval Noah HarariIt's a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest.Humankind makes a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. By thinking the worst of others, we bring out the worst in our politics and economics too.In this major book, internationally bestselling author Rutger Bregman takes some of the world's most famous studies and events and reframes them, providing a new perspective on the last 200,000 years of human history. 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Most Interesting People You've Never Heard Of

by Riley Knight