Seeing the past in a different light

Amaral and Jones were keen to ensure that their book was not just the same old story told from the same old point of view - and Jones said that writing it made even he, a well-known published historian and broadcaster, realize the limitations of his knowledge when it came to countries such as China. The book contains images of Chairman Mao Zedong.

"It's so easy to write a European/US take on world history, but we really wanted to make this book cover all cultures and nations, so from the point of view of images, that makes it more challenging as when you start to look at Asia and Africa, there are so few of them in comparison," he said. "It also made me realize how ignorant we are of so much history from countries like China, apart from the last few decades.

"Even things like the Opium Wars (1840-42), which would once have been an essential part of imperial history, even if it was just learning about things from the British perspective - I've not studied that in any depth in school or university, so it would be very easy to grow up in this country with shockingly little knowledge of Chinese history.

"In terms of knowing about and understanding what's happened in the past, that's a terrible failing on our part, and, in terms of being prepared for what lies ahead in the future and China's importance in it, it's absolutely negligent, so I was keen to get in whatever Chinese history we could."