Places of Encounter provides a place-based approach to world history, focusing on specific locations at critical moments when human history was transformed as a result of encountersphysical, political, cultural, intellectual, and religious.

Table of Contents

• About the Contributors
• Preface
• Thematic Table of Contents
• Regional Table of Contents
• Hadar: The Legacy of Human Ancestors (4,000,000-100,000 BCE) - CHRISTOPHER HOWELL, RED ROCKS COLLEGE
• Makapansgat and Pinnacle Point: Three Million Years of Human Evolution in South Africa (3,000,000-2,000 BCE) - ANDY I. R. HERRIES, LA TROBE UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE, VIC, AUSTRALIA
• Babylon: Rise of a Complex Urban Civilization (ca. 3700-539 BCE) - MELANIE SUE BYRD, VALDOSTA STATE UNIVERSITY
• Athens: The Cradle of Western Civilization (900 BCE-324 CE) - NADEJDA POPOV, UNIVERSITY OF WEST GEORGIA
• Xian: Eastern Gateway and Strategic Citadel (1049 BCE-907 CE) - KEITH N. KNAPP, THE MILITARY COLLEGE OF SOUTH CAROLINA
• Carthage: Gateway to the World Beyond the Mediterranean (ca. 800 BCE-700 CE) - JULIA CLANCY-SMITH, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
• Constantinople/Istanbul: A Vortex of Peoples and Cultures (324-1500) - NINA ERGIN, KOÇ UNIVERSITY, TURKEY
• Mecca: Pilgrimage and the Making of the Islamic World (400-1500) - MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER LOW, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
• Kilwa: A Commercial City in the Economic and Cultural Cross-Currents (1000-1500) - ERIK GILBERT, ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
• Varanasi: The Microcosm of India and Exemplar of Balance (ca. 1200-1600 CE) - NITA KUMAR, CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE
• Samarkand: Political and Economic Hub Connecting East and West (1220-1660) - REUEL R. HANKS, OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY
• Venice: A Center of International Exchange in the Renaissance World (1350-1550) - MARITERE LÓPEZ, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO
• Potosí: A Motor of Global Change (1545-1600s) - JANE E. MANGAN, DAVIDSON COLLEGE
• Malacca: Cosmopolitan Trading Port of the Early Modern World (1500-1824) - BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA,; LEONARD Y. ANDAYA, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI’I