Maps
Homer sang in a world of small Greek city-states; Dante wrote amid feuding popes and kings; Tolstoy witnessed an empire on the edge of change. To understand a book, it helps to know its world. These maps take you through more than 3,000 years of history, from 1200 BCE to 1980 CE, showing the civilizations, borders and turning points that shaped the great books. Choose a period below and see where each story begins.
Note: The maps were created with AI tools for illustration only. They are not to scale, and proportions have been adjusted so all key information fits.
Please follow the links to Maps of each period:
1200 BCE – Late Bronze Age at Turning Point
1000 BCE – After Bronze Age Collapse
800 BCE – Homer and the Emerging Greek World
700 BCE – Early Iron Age
600 BCE – The Approach of the Axial Age
500 BCE – The Classical and Axial World
325 BCE – The Age of Alexander
100 BCE – Roman Republic in Crisis
100 CE – Christianity and Increasingly Connected World
225 CE – Growing Religious Diversity
400 CE – Roman Empire Instability and Persia
600 CE – Empires, Faiths, and a Transforming World
750 CE – Medieval World
1000 CE – Holy Roman Empire
1200 CE – Growth of Kingdoms
1300 CE – Papacy and Monarchs
1450 CE – Italian Renaissance Flourishes
1600 CE – Renaissance and Reformation
1650 CE – End of the Thirty Years’ War
1750 CE – Enlightenment
1820 CE – Romanticism
1850 CE – Industrialization
1880 CE – Rise of Political Movements
1925 CE – Post WWI
1955 CE – Post WWII
1980 CE – Global Literature
