Why start a history course in 1200 CE? Think of it as a moment just before the different regions of the world became globally interconnected by trade and culture. Starting here gives us a chance to see how today’s global tapestry was woven.

Africa, Europe, and Asia were connected by land and sea routes for millennia. These linkages produced a world of surprising commonalities across vast continents. Let’s take a tour of the peoples and places of Afro-Eurasia.

Muslim rulers controlled vast territories from West Africa to Indonesia, spreading a faith that united many very different cultures. Studying the Islamic world in this period makes for a perfect introduction to an era of empires.

The Mongol Empire was the largest land empire in history. How did they conquer and rule such a vast territory? And how did their rule shape our world?

If the world is indeed a tapestry, then the Silk Roads were the threads that wove it together. See how the merchants who roamed these routes moved goods, ideas, and diseases across continents.

The societies of the Americas and Oceania were separated from Afro-Eurasia by vast oceans. How did cultures in places like the Aztec Empire and Polynesia compare to those of Afro-Eurasia?

The American continents make up nearly a third of the Earth’s landmass, and just as in Afro-Eurasia, they were threaded with trade networks that moved trade goods and new ideas wherever humans settled.

Wherever cultures intersected, innovation thrived. But these transformations sometimes produced dire consequences for individual communities and whole regions.

The Black Death killed tens of millions of humans in the fourteenth century. History’s worst pandemic spread across Afro-Eurasia like a wildfire, leaving ruin in its wake. Where did it come from? How did it change the world?