The first empires, spiritual revolutions, the Middle Ages and Europe's rise.

Age of Empire

The first empires which laid the foundations for the modern world.

From the Assyrians to Alexander the Great, conquerors rampaged across the Middle East and vicious wars were fought all the way from China to the Mediterranean. But this time of chaos and destruction also brought enormous progress and inspired human development. In the Middle East, the Phoenicians invented the alphabet, and one of the most powerful ideas in world history emerged: the belief in just one God. In India, the Buddha offered a radical alternative to empire building - a way of living that had no place for violence or hierarchy and was open to everyone.

Great thinkers from Socrates to Confucius proposed new ideas about how to rule more wisely and live in a better society. And in Greece, democracy was born - the greatest political experiment of all. But within just a few years, its future would be under threat from invasion by an empire in the east...

The Word and the Sword

Continuing charting the story of human civilisation and plunge into the spiritual revolutions that took the world between 300 BC and 700 AD.

This was an age that saw the bloody prince Ashoka turn to Buddhism in India; the ill-fated union of Julius Caesar and Egypt's Cleopatra; the unstoppable rise of Christianity across the Roman Empire and the dramatic spread of Islam from Spain to Central Asia.

Each dramatic story pits the might of kings and rulers against the power of faith. But Andrew Marr discovers that the most potent human force on the planet came from the combination of faith and military power. Both Christianity and Islam created new empires of 'the word and the sword'. 

Into the Light

The Middle Ages when vikings explored and pillaged.  

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe went into the so called Dark Ages. This was a period of intellectual darkness and economic regression that occurred in Europe following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. One of the Vikings greatest talents were settling down (we know this from written records). Vikings explored and pillaged from Northern Europe to England, Iceland and North America. But they also laid the foundations of powerful new trading states - including Russia (the Vikings were called the Rus, and therefore named it Russia). The leader Oleg asked representatives from different religions to convince him into their religion, and as he chose Greek orthodox that religions would affect things such as architecture (how the buildings looked like)

This was also the Golden Age of Islam. They pushed forward in e.g. math by counting the size of the planet by the angle of the sunlight. The knowledge of ancient civilizations from India, Persia and Greece were built upon by Islamic scholars in Baghdad's House of Wisdom, and the knowledge was passed on to the Christian kingdom of Europe.

When Ghengis Khan defeated his opponents, instead of offering them disgrace, he offered brotherhood. This united the people and grew a bigger, stronger army.

He expaned his empire across northern China which gave him new technology with weapons. He later expanded his Mongol empire to the largest empire of history, and by taking over Islamic cities the Christian Europe could grow – thanks to his victories making the silk roads open to outsiders.

This made new possibilities Marco Polo to explore China, and new possibilities to trade. E.g. Cairo traded gold with the great empire of Mali, which later was traded into Europe.

The new ways of building, new paintings, new money and new confidence was found, and would later be known as the renaissance. This in particular grew from the greatest city states of northern Italy: Genoa, Venice, Pisa, Florence, and Milan with great people such as Leonardo Da Vinci.

By exploring the conquests of Ghengis Khan, the adventures of Marco Polo and the extraordinary story of an African King - the wealthiest who ever lived – we find out how Europe emerged from the so-called 'Dark Ages' and used influences from around the world to rise again with the Renaissance. 

Age of Plunder

Europe's rise from piracy to private enterprise.

The explosion of global capitalism began with Christopher Columbus stumbling across America while searching for China. While Europe tore itself apart in religious wars after the Reformation, the Spanish colonised the New World and brought back 10 trillion dollars' worth of gold and silver.

But it was Dutch and English buccaneer businessmen who invented the real money-maker: limited companies and the stock exchange. They battled hand-to-hand to control the world's sea trade in spices, furs and luxuries like tulips. In the 145 years from 1492 to 1637, European capitalism was born and spread across the globe.