The market place Trade provides mankind's most significant meeting place, the market. In primitive societies only religious events - cult rituals, or rites of passage such as marriage - bring people together in a comparable way. But in these cases the participants are already linked, by custom or kinship. The process of barter brings a crowd together in a more random fashion. New ideas, along with precious ...

German colony: AD 1884-1914 The first German connection with Togo is the arrival of missionaries in 1847 to work among the largest tribal group in the region, the Ewe. German traders soon follow, establishing a base at Anécho on the coast. When Bismarck decides to put together an off-the-peg German empire in Africa, Togo is one of the three places which he selects on the west coast. His representative, Gust ...

Timur and the Chagatai Turks: 14th century AD The regions north and south of the Hindu Kush, approximating to modern Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, form an indeterminate part of the empire of Genghis Khan. They are inherited by descendants of his son Chagatai, but the district is fought over by many rival cousins. Here, more than anywhere in the Mongol empire, the Turkish influence is all-pervasive. By the end ...

A remote territory The advantages and disadvantages of the high plateau known as Tibet are identical. The place is extremely hard to reach, hemmed in on the south by the Himalayas and on the north by the almost equally high Kunlun mountains. The terrain is inhospitable, the plateau itself being about 15,000 feet above sea level. The climate is harsh, with violent swings of temperature between night and day ...

Ingredients of a complex war: AD 1618-1648 The conglomeration of conflicts known as the Thirty Years' War can be seen as the tidying up of the patchwork quilt to which Germany has been reduced by two different historical processes. The fragmented nature of the region results originally from the feudal structure of the Holy Roman empire. It has been further complicated and embittered by the rivalries of the ...

Ingredients of a complex war: AD 1618-1648 The conglomeration of conflicts known as the Thirty Years' War can be seen as the tidying up of the patchwork quilt to which Germany has been reduced by two different historical processes. The fragmented nature of the region results originally from the feudal structure of the Holy Roman empire. It has been further complicated and embittered by the rivalries of the ...

Dance and music It is unlikely that any human society (at any rate until the invention of puritanism) has denied itself the excitement and pleasure of dancing. Like cave painting, the first purpose of dance is probably ritual - appeasing a nature spirit or accompanying a rite of passage. But losing oneself in rhythmic movement with other people is an easy form of intoxication. Pleasure can never have been f ...

Our solar system: about 4.6 billion years ago In our own galaxy, the Milky Way, a star is formed about 4.6 billion years ago - about two thirds of the way through the story so far of the universe. It is the star which we know as the sun. As its material contracts, many particles are left spinning freely round the central mass of the new star. It is these which coalesce to form the planets, including earth. ...

The use of tools It is a commonplace that humans are distinguished from other creatures by a technological ability, and man has often been described as a tool-using animal. The distinction is not entirely valid. Some animals do use tools. Chimpanzees are the most often quoted example, stripping a twig to plunge it into an anthill and then eating the tasty termites which cling to the end of it. A more modern ...

Uncharted territory: to the 19th century AD In the uncharted centuries of prehistory, Tanzania is criss-crossed by tribal trade routes linking the Great Lakes (Victoria and Tanganyika) with the coast. These are the same routes along which Arab traders subsequently move inland, searching for slaves and ivory. In a second wave of penetration by outsiders, Europeans use Bagamoyo (opposite Zanzibar) as their st ...