After a period of instability following the disappearance of earlier empires, the Middle Ages saw a great flowering of culture and civilization in regions as diverse as China, the Byzantine Middle East, and Mesoamerica. Moreover, the new religion of Islam emerged out of Arabia and quickly travelled across much of Asia and Africa, while European civilization recovered from its "dark ages." This text examines not only these civilizations but also the cultural and economic ties which increasingly connected them.
