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Part 2

Finding Strength in Numbers

IN THIS PART …

 Visit the earliest cities, seeing how ancient people learned to work together for mutual benefit and how defensive alliances, commerce, and conquest spread written language, law, and new ways of thinking.

 Follow the rise of the Roman Republic, which grew into an empire whose influence is still felt today, and see how other ancient empires rose and fell.

 Discover how the Middle Ages, an unsettled time of migrations and regional conflicts, set the stage for modern nations.

 See how the rise of Islam reshaped vast parts of Asia, Africa, and even Europe, and how the Crusades and the Silk Road fed Western appetites for trade with India and East Asia.

 Follow new sea routes that enabled a handful of European powers to claim pieces of every other habitable continent as components of worldwide empires and get a glimpse of how colonial residents chafed at foreign control.

 Find out about the push and pull of globalism as imperial powers, eventually enabled by technologies such as the steam engine and the telegraph, extended their reach even while subject people fought to break their ties with European overlords.