Middle Ages
The Middle Ages center on the Eurasian world and are commonly dated from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. While the Western Roman Empire fragmented into numerous separate kingdoms, the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire survived until late in the Middle Ages. The period also corresponds to the Islamic conquests, subsequent Islamic golden age, and commencement and expansion of the Arab slave trade, followed by the Mongol invasions in the Middle East and Central Asia. South Asia saw a series of middle kingdoms of India, followed by the establishment of Islamic empires in India. The Chinese Empire experienced the successive Sui, Tang, Liao, Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Middle Eastern trade routes along the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road through the Gobi Desert, provided limited economic and cultural contact between Asian and European civilizations. While the Middle Ages held sway in Europe, civilizations in the Americas, such as the Inca, Maya, and Aztec, continued to flourish, then ended at different times.
Read more about this topic: History Of The World
Famous quotes containing the words middle ages, middle and/or ages:
“What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude.... A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works. Not only his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the men of past ages guide his hands; and, as part of the human race, he creates. If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.”
—William Morris (1834–1896)