Oxford historian's Silk Roads talks about 'age of Asia'

Oxford University history professor Peter Frankopan says historians should be brave: "Otherwise, there is no point of writing history."

In his latest book, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, he has tried to narrate the history of the world from a different perspective - from what "kept being told of the importance of the Mediterranean as a cradle of civilization, when it seemed so obvious that this was not where civilization had really been forged", as he writes in the preface.

"The real crucible, the 'Mediterranean' in its literal meaning - the center of the world - was not a sea separating Europe and North Africa, but right in the heart of Asia."