Two thousand years ago, artworks of astonishing variety were being created in far-flung regions of the world. This volume presents more than 150 works of art from western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Near East, India, China, Southeast Asia, and the Americas, and highlights the similarities that existed between the widely separated parts of the world in which they originated.

Historical summaries accompanied by maps briefly describe the nature of each culture and the flow of power and peoples during the period centering around the Year One.