Civilizations in Contact:
A Resource for World History

This web-based resource attempts to showcase the various points at which civilizations of the world have intersected and interacted with each other in the past. It aims to demonstrate that globalisation is not just a modern phenomenon but also a trend among humans that has existed across all times and all places. People throughout history, and even before histories were written, have been interested in societies and cultures other than their own. For the most part, they have sought to interact peacefully with them for mutual benefit, whether through travel, trade, or the exchange of information, ideas or scientific technologies. This is not to deny that there have been wars and conflicts in the past, but to focus on the positive efforts people have made to live together in peace, and to grow in knowledge of each other.

The main focus here is on premodern times, from prehistory to approximately 1800 CE. In the early 19th century, such technological innovations as the introduction of the railroads caused many commercial and cultural centres of the Old World to be bypassed, and set off a decline in ways of life that had existed for centuries in those locations.

Access to the information in this resource is provided through the following five key categories: TRAVELLERS, CITIES, ROUTES, TRADE GOODS and THEMES. In addition, there is an "OTHER" category to include topics that do not fall into the main five. When you choose one of these categories, you will be taken first to a search page for the various items in that category, and if you click on one of these in the left-hand column you will be taken to the "module" on that item. This module will contain a summary, with links to the sources on which the summary is based, as well as to other modules related to the one that was initially chosen.

For instance, the module on the traveller Nicolò de' Conti takes you first to a summary of his life and travels, which has links on the left-hand side to a Bibliography, any Feature Articles and Academic Articles that have been written about him, and Primary Sources, such as digitised versions of his travel account. There may also be a link to his Itinerary. On the right-hand side are links to the items (modules) mentioned in the text on that page, which take you directly to the home pages of those modules.

Each of the module pages lists the five key categories twice: once on the masthead in white capital letters on a red or grey background, along with the sixth (OTHER) category on the end at the right. This set of categories is to take you to the general search page for all the modules on the entire site that belong to that category. The second list is below the page title, in smaller letters (both upper-and-lower case) on a white background. These links are only to the modules that are specifically relevant to the one you are in. Taking Nicolò de' Conti as an example, if you choose "CITIES" from the set of categories on the page's masthead, you will be taken to the general city list page where you can choose any city. If you choose one of these, it may or may not have anything to do with Nicolò de' Conti. On the other hand, if you choose "Cities" from the lower list, the one on the white background, you will be taken to a much shorter list of cities, those that are specifically relevant to Nicolò de' Conti. You might choose "Damascus" from this list, in which case you will be taken to what is called a "pivot page" on Damascus because it pivots between various modules. It usually contains a quotation from a traveller's text, but it might be from a different traveller than the one you started with. In this case it is a quote from the traveller Ludovico de Varthema, chosen because it is an impressive quote. To find the one relevant to Nicolò de' Conti you need to choose travellers from the lower list of categories on that pivot page and choose Nicolò de' Conti.

Most of the general choose pages have a category in the middle of the page called "Featured" items. These are the ones that have had the greatest amount of work done on them. You can ignore the other specialised lists on the choose pages; only the Featured ones have been developed. For themes, this is the only way to choose a theme; there is no alphatised list. The timelines on the search pages are not linked up at the moment.

There are many topics that are not covered thoroughly because the site is too big for our small staff. If you wish to contribute to developing the links further, or develop a module or set of modules, please get in touch.