Crossroads and Cultures, Volume I: A History of the World's Peoples: To 1450

Marc Van De Mieroop is professor of history at Columbia University. His books include "The Ancient Mesopotamian City", "King Hammurabi of Babylon", "A History of the Ancient Near East", "The Eastern Mediterranean in the Age of Ramesses II", and "A History of Ancient Egypt".

Richard von Glahn is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he has taught Chinese and world history since 1987. His primary field of research is the economic history of premodern China, with a particular focus on the period 1000 1700. He has previously published three monographs in Chinese history, including Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000 1700 (1996) and The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious Culture (2004), several edited books, and a co-authored textbook in world history, Crossroads and Cultures: A History of the World (2012). The present book has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation. Von Glahn's current research focuses on monetary and commercial circulation in maritime East Asia from the eighth to the seventeenth centuries.

Kris Lane is Professor of History at the College of William and Mary.