Antiquity The Civilization of the Ancient World Norman F. Cantor HarperCollins: 240 pp., 24.95 ...

Money has shaped civilizations for centuries, but in Medieval Europe, it didn’t work the way we think today. The rise of banking, trade credit, and money changers transformed the economy from a ...

Among those great medieval cities were places like Songo Mnara, a gorgeous and bustling Swahili city built on an island off the coast of Tanzania in the fourteenth century.

Scientists don’t know exactly what caused the Medieval Warm Period, which lasted from about 800 to 1400, though they agree it was the result of natural fluctuations in Earth’s climate.