Peter Frankopan

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Global change in the 21st century

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The Return of History and the Death of Democracy

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Biography

Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University, where he is also Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford and Stavros Niarchos Foundation Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research.

He works on the history of the Mediterranean, Russia, the Middle East, Persia/Iran, Central Asia and beyond, and on relations between Christianity and Islam. He also specializes in medieval Greek literature and translated The Alexiad for Penguin Classics (2009).

Peter often writes for the international press, including The New York Times, Financial Times, Guardian, and has a regular column in the London Evening Standard. He has been profiled in China Daily, China’s largest English language newspaper and in Good Times (Pakistan).

Peter has been described in The New Statesman as “the history rock star du jour,” and a “rock-star historian” (VLT, Sweden). He was also named One of the World’s 50 Top Thinkers by Prospect Magazine in 2019.

Frankopan’s book, The Silk Roads was named The Daily Telegraph’s History Book of the Year 2015. It went to number one in the Sunday Times non-fiction charts, remaining in the top 10 for nine months in a row, as well as being #1 in China, India and many other countries around the world, selling 1.5m copies in the process. In December 2018, The Silk Roads was named one of the 25 most influential books translated into Chinese in the last 40 years, alongside such famous titles as One Hundred Years of Solitude, Pride and Prejudice, Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby. The Silk Roads was also chosen as part of the Government of Pakistan’s Read to Lead program to encourage literacy in the country. It was the inspiration for a new character in The Vikings mini-series.

His follow-up book, The New Silk Roads, is a “masterly-mapping out of a new world order,” according to the Evening Standard, and “a brilliant guide to terra incognita” (Sunday Times) that is “reminiscent of Tolstoy” (Daily Telegraph). It won the Human Sciences prize of the Carical Foundation in 2019. Both of Frankopan’s bestselling books had been translated into more than thirty languages.

Widely recognized for his ability to make complex global histories accessible and relevant to contemporary audiences, Peter Frankopan is a highly sought-after keynote speaker and advisor to leaders around the world. His work offers critical insights into the forces shaping our past, present, and future, making him an essential voice for organizations, conferences, and events focused on global affairs, leadership, and cultural understanding.

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