The World

This book has given me the greatest satisfaction of my writing life, and presented the most daunting challenge. But I have suffered much less than many other historians. Ibn Khaldun saw both his parents perish of the plague. Sir Walter Raleigh wrote his History of the World while waiting to be executed, a condition that surely fostered the required perspective. But he was beheaded before finishing (an unbearable thought). History has a special, almost mystic power to shape (and, if abused, to distort) the present: that’s what makes history-writing an essential and noble – but dangerous – profession. Sima Qian, the Chinese world historian (born circa 145 BC), was accused of defaming the emperor and given a choice between execution and becoming a palace eunuch. He opted for castration so that he could complete his history: ‘before I had finished my rough manuscript, I met with this calamity … If it may be handed down to men who will appreciate it, and penetrate to the villages and great cities, then though I should suffer a thousand mutilations, what regret should I have?’ Every historian, every writer shares that dream. Sima Qian was in my thoughts as I wrote …

Among living historians, a galaxy of distinguished, brilliant scholars have read, discussed and corrected all or part of this book: thank you to Dominic Lieven, Professor of International History, LSE; Peter Frankopan, Professor of Global History, Oxford; Olivette Otele, Professor of the Legacies and Memory of Slavery, SOAS; Thomas Levenson, Professor of Science Writing, MIT; Sir Simon Schama, Professor of History and Art History, Columbia Univeristy; David Abulafia, Professor Emeritus of Mediterranean History, Cambridge University; Abigail Green, Professor of Modern European History, Oxford.

Dr Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State 1973–7, read his period; I had the honour to talk about the creation of the internet with Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Rosemary Berners-Lee. Thanks to Ben Okri.

Thanks to the following for correcting these specific subjects:

Africa: Luke Pepera.

Americas: (USA) Annette Gordon-Reed, Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History, Harvard Law School; Andrew Preston, Professor of American History, Cambridge University; (Mesoamerica/South America) Matthew Restall, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Colonial Latin American History, Penn State College of Liberal Arts; (Brazil) Lilia Schwarcz, Professor of Anthropology, University of São Paulo.

China: (early) Michael Nylan, Professor, East Asian Studies, Berkeley University; (Qin onwards) Mark C. Elliott, Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History, Harvard University.

Genetics/DNA: Dr Adam Rutherford.

Greeks: Roderick Beaton, Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek & Byzantine History, King’s College, London.

India/South Asia: Tirthankar Roy, Professor in Economic History, LSE; Dr Tripurdaman Singh, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Studies, London University; William Dalrymple; Dr Sushma Jansari, Curator, South Asia Collections, British Museum; Dr Imma Ramos, Curator, South Asia Collections, British Museum; Dr Katherine Schofield, Senior Lecturer in South Asian Music and History, King’s College London.

Iran: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Professor in Ancient History, Cardiff University.

Japan: Dr Christopher Harding, Senior Lecturer, Asian History, Edinburgh University.

Ukraine: Serhii Plokhy, Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History, Harvard University

My thanks to the following for their corrections in subjects presented chronologically:

Prehistory: Professor Chris Stringer, Research Leader, Human Evolution, Natural History Museum; (Sumeria/Mesopotamia) Augusta McMahon, Professor of Mesopotamian Archaeology, Cambridge; Dr John MacGinnis, Department of Middle East, British Museum.

Ancient Egypt: Salima Ikhram, Professor of Egyptology, American University in Cairo.

Ancient Rome: Greg Woolf, Ronald J. Mellor Chair of Ancient History at University of California.

Silk Roads: Peter Frankopan.

Byzantium: Jonathan Harris, Professor of the History of Byzantium, Royal Holloway, University of London; Peter Frankopan.

Vikings: Neil Price, Professor of Archaeology, University of Uppsala.

Kyivan Rus/Muscovy: Dr Sergei Bogatyrev, Associate Professor, University College London (author of a forthcoming book on familial memory in Kyivan Rus).

Medieval Europe/Normans: Robert Bartlett, Emeritus Professor, St Andrews University.

Mongols: Timothy May, Professor of Central Eurasian History, University of North Georgia.

Incas and Aztecs: Matthew Restall, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Colonial Latin American History, Penn State College of Liberal Arts.

Ethiopia: Dr Mai Musié, postdoctoral researcher in Race and Ethnicity in the ancient Graeco-Roman world, Oxford University; Dr Verena Krebs, Ruhr-University Bochum; Dr Adam Simmons, Nottingham Trent University; Dr Bar Kribus, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.