By Steppe, Desert and Ocean

This is a book on a grand scale in every sense of the word. By taking a geographical territory as wide as Eurasia, stretching from Europe to China, and a historical sweep from 10,000 BC, the author paints on a vast canvas while managing to maintain a thematic continuity throughout the book. One interesting visual factor is that Europe appears in the top left-hand corner of the overall map, giving it an unusual angle. The title refers to the main channels of connectivity and mobility between areas that in time became empires involving movement of people, armies and trade in a vast interconnected global system that arose between 250 BC and 250 A.D. The large number of maps conveys the dynamics of empires and exchanges while the narrative describes demographic pressures on natural environments so that one understands that our current situation is a globalised picture of the same trend of overexploitation.

The author's view is shaped by his discipline of archaeology, and it would have been interesting if he had made a few references and comparisons to the work of Arnold Toynbee, whose Study of History covers some of the same ground. What makes the story particularly fascinating is the way in which the book alternates discussion of different geographical areas so that a passage on China is juxtaposed with a corresponding history of Persia or Rome. One gets a particularly vivid impression of the rise and fall of empires and the role played by predatory nomads. His analysis ends in 1300, while briefly mentioning the devastating effects of the Black Death. He identifies a number of critical thresholds, including the domestication of the horse, the interaction between pastoralists of the steppe zone and more settled agricultural states, and the establishment of long-distance trading networks. One particularly striking illustration shows that Zheng He's 1402 junk at 1500 tonnes was five times the size of the ship used by Vasco da Gama to sail round the Cape of Good Hope 60 years later. The book is an epic journey, beautifully illustrated and engagingly written that will surely attain classic status.