Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University, where he is Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research and Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College. He is also Professor of Silk Roads Studies and a Bye-Fellow at King's College, Cambridge.
He works on the history and politics of the Mediterranean, Russia, the Middle East, Persia/Iran, Central Asia, China and beyond - as well as on the histories of climate, natural resources and connectivities.
Peter often writes for the international press, including The Sunday Times, New York Times, Financial Times, Guardian, and the Evening Standard.
He has been called 'the first great historian of the 21st century' by Brazil's DCM magazine; 'the history rock star du jour by The New Statesman, and simply 'a rock-star historian' (VLT - Sweden; Helsingin Sanomat - Finland). The Times has called him 'a literary star.'
Silk Roads was named The Daily Telegraph's History Book of the Year 2015. It went to #1 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 more than 2 million copies. It is one of 'ten books that change how you see the world' (The Times). It was named one of the 'Books of the Decade' 2010-20 by the Sunday Times.
His follow-up, 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.
In his latest book, The Earth Transformed: An Untold History, Peter looks at environmental history, climate and the ways it has shaped the human and natural past. 'This is an endlessly fascinating book', says Gerard DeGroot in The Times, 'an easy read on an important subject. It has the intellectual weight and dramatic force of a tsunami.' According to Walter Scheidel in The Financial Times: 'Humanity has transformed the Earth: Frankopan transforms our understanding of history.'
Peter's books The Silk Roads: A New History of the World and The New Silk Roads: The Future and Present of the World have been translated into forty languages.
