From a small island in the Venetian lagoon, a 15th-Century monk somehow designed an astonishingly accurate planisphere of the world. On the second floor of the Library of Saint Mark in Venice, a map ...

Geography, demographics, religion, technology, and a state’s institutions determined why certain states exercised power and how different regions developed the way that they did. This piece is the ...

The geopolitical impact of the Arab states on the trajectory of Asian history was enormous: it swept away old states and tribes, and brought to power new ones. This piece is part of a series of ...