Since the year 1492, contacts between different cultures have clearly influenced all peoples on earth. By no means, however, did cross-cultural encounters begin with the discovery of the New World. This book examines cross-cultural encounters before 1492, focusing in particular on the ways in which cultural traditions won converts in foreign cultures.Bentley focuses on the major cross-cultural influences that transformed Asia and Europe during this period: The ancient silk roads that linked China with the Roman Empire, the spread of the world religions, and the Mongol Empire of the thirteenth century. His goal throughout the work is to examine the conditions - political, social, economic, or cultural - that enable one culture to influence, mix with, or suppress another.