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Border States: Sogdiana, Korea, and Japan
Season 1
Sogdiana was vital to the operation of the Silk Roads beginning in the fourth century CE. Over the course of some four hundred years, Sogdian city-st…
3 years ago
East-West Interactions in the Early Middle Ages
Season 1
The Silk Roads originated in the Han dynasty’s trade with nomadic peoples from the Inner Asian Steppe and grew into a vast network that crisscrossed …
3 years ago
The rise and fall of the Sui and Tang dynasties in China
Season 1
The new religion of Islam came into India with waves of invaders, from Turkic speakers of central Asia to Arabs from the distant west. In the process…
3 years ago
South Asia in the Early Middle Ages
Season 1
The new religion of Islam came into India with waves of invaders, from Turkic speakers of central Asia to Arabs from the distant west. In the process…
3 years ago
Islamization and Religious Rule under Islam
Season 1
Through a process of conquest, conversion, and coexistence, the early Abbasids created a cosmopolitan medieval empire centered at their new capital o…
3 years ago
The Arab-Islamic Conquests and the First Islamic States
Season 1
The issue of leadership following Muhammad’s death caused immediate tensions within the Islamic ummah even as the first four caliphs, the Rashidun, o…
3 years ago
The Rise and Message of Islam
Season 1
While the Arabs of northern Arabia were uniting as a capable fighting force looking for opportunities to expand, the Byzantines and Sasanian Empires …
3 years ago
The Margins of Empire
Season 1
The Kushan Empire in central Asia is an example of the diversity found beyond the Mediterranean during Late Antiquity. The Kushan Empire dominated tr…
3 years ago
The Kingdoms of Aksum and Himyar
Season 1
Two kingdoms flourished on the periphery of the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires in Late Antiquity. In East Africa, Aksum oversaw a trade network with …
3 years ago
The Byzantine Empire and Persia
Season 1
The two great superpowers of Late Antiquity, the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire, vied for supremacy in the fifth and sixth centuries. Thoug…
3 years ago