Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University, where he is Senior Research Fellow of Worcester College and Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research. He works on the history of the Eastern Mediterranean, Russia, the Middle East, Central Asia and China. His work on the history of the Crusades was seen as ‘overturning a millennium of scholarship’ and making ‘the most significant contribution to rethinking the origins and course of the First Crusade for a generation.’ His book, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World has been described as ‘magnificent’ (Sunday Times) ‘ dazzling’ (Guardian), ‘a rare book that makes you question your assumptions about the world’ (Wall St Journal), ‘a treasure’ (Libre Belgique),...