大象传媒

The French writer Laurent Binet鈥檚 new book Civilisations is a flight of fancy re-imagining the modern world. He tells Andrew Marr that his counter-factual novel looks at what could have happened if the Vikings had made it to America, Columbus had failed, and the Incas and Aztecs had ended up fighting over the colonisation of Europe.

Caroline Dodds Pennock, one of the world鈥檚 foremost historians of Mesoamerican culture, considers the experiences of Indigenous Americans (such as the Aztecs, Maya, Tupi and Algonquians) coming to Europe in the sixteenth century. She argues that these people forged the course of European civilisation, just as surely as European colonists changed America.

Colonisation and empire-building are also at the forefront of Christienna Fryar鈥檚 historical research at Goldsmiths, University of London. In her work on the modern Caribbean and Britain she argues that their histories are intertwined and cannot be properly understood in isolation.

Producer: Katy Hickman