6th to 15th Centuries

Power, War and Class

Byzantium and the Sassanids make way for Islam -- two great empires weaken themselves with war

Islam, Power and Empire, to 677 CE -- the Prophet, successions, civil wars and expansions

Islamic Empire and Disintegration, 672 to 1055 CE -- more expansion, the Umayyads, the Abbasids and Fatimids

India, from 501 to 1200 -- Hephthalites and declining trade; Islam arrives; stagnation and economic decline

Europe: 501 to 1000 -- darkness, Anglo-Saxons, Slavs, Bulgars, Hispania, Charlemagne, Vikings and feudalism

Europe: 1001 to 1212 -- towns, intellectuality, Hispania, Norman kings in Britain, knights and chivalry

Europe: 1201 to 1500 -- plague, Hundred Years' War, Machiavelli, Russia, Portugal and Spain

Turks, Conquests and the Crusades -- the Seljuk Turks, crusades, Zengid dynasty, Saladin, 840 to 1212

The Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties -- dynastic rise and fall, conceit and military weakness, 501 to 1126

Genghis Khan and the Great Mongol Empire -- unity, law, conquest, succesion and division, 1200 to 1281

China from Mongols to the Ming -- rebellion and first Ming emperor; ocean voyages, Confucianism, to 1400

Japan to 1333 CE -- failed reforms; emperor figureheads; privilege and disorder; the Mongol invasions

Timur (Tamerlane), 1336 to 1405 -- blood, guts and empire from Georgia to India

The Ottoman Turks, 1000 to 1500 -- empire into the Balkans and their conquest of Constantinople

African Empires to CE 1500 -- monarchs and the divine, Ethiopia, Muslim migrations and trade with Europeans

Maya, Aztec, Inca, Inuit: before Columbus -- people of the Americas

Darkness, Religion and Philosophy

Contending Ideas in Western Europe -- from a Dark Age to William of Occam and "Aucassin and Nicolette"

Christian Organization and Confllct -- monasteries, East-West schism, heresy, inquisition

Islamic Interpretations -- The Hadiths and Core beliefs

Muslims, Science and Philosophy -- al-Kindi, Ibn Sena (Avicenna), al-Ghazali, Omar Khayyam

Hinduism, Buddhism and Islamic Armies -- Bakhti, Krishna vs Vishnu. Ghurids against Buddhism and Hindusim "

Philosophy in China -- Cheng-Yi, Xhu-Xi, neo-Confuciansim

Japan, Buddhism and Spiritual Bathing -- emperors, commoners, samurai, bushido, and zen