From ancient river civilizations to the dreams of empire: this book explores the deep connections - material, cultural, and mythical - that shaped the Eurasian world long before the modern idea of East and West.

Long before the modern idea of East and West took shape, the Eurasian world was already crisscrossed by exchanges, journeys, stories, trade routes, and dreams. This book tells the story of how the East helped build the West - a history of merchants and wars, of spices, jewels, and precious stones, but also of discoveries that changed the world: from the compass to zero, all the way to the sofa. Spanning from the river civilizations of the Fertile Crescent to the Silk Roads, from the solar myths of India and Egypt to the steppe migrations that shaped European languages, East: a History reveals a Eurasian past built on continuity rather than opposition. Alongside blending and exchange, a sense of distance also emerged: the East as a dream of riches - the Garden of Eden, the gold sought by Alexander the Great - but also as the land of monsters and barbarians. Century after century, this ambivalence gave rise to shifting imaginaries, leading to the modern orientalist fantasies of harems and odalisques, ascetics and tyrants, sensuality and violence. Alessandro Vanoli tells this story with the precision of a historian and the voice of a storyteller. Drawing on ancient texts, archaeology, comparative mythology, and linguistics, he guides us through a vast and surprising landscape, inviting us to reconsider not only where the East begins - but where Europe comes from.