There are really two history books here, one much better than the other. In the first book, the peoples in lands of the Silk Roads are drivers of their own destiny, and they propel much of world history along in the process. These chapters are told with verve and clarity. I learned a ton. In the second book, these same states are subject to the whims of the British and American empires and somehow lose all autonomy in their own destinies, in Frankopan's telling. Suddenly their cultures and intellectual institutions are helpless to foreign powers for reasons that go unexplored. Every negative outcome is atttibuted to the British or the Americans, either directly or obliquely, and the peoples of the Middle East and Central Asia appear to play only a minimal role in the negative trajectories they experienced in the 19th and 20th centuries. The historical details are all there, but the analysis is frustratingly uncomplicated. I would have given this book 5 stars halfway through, but by the end I could only give 3.