This work examines the cultural interchange between Asia and the Western world from earliest times until the modern era. Its purpose is to show something of the still largely unacknowledged debt the peoples of the world owe to each other's civilizations and cultures. This book discusses some of the contributions made by the East to the development of the modern West, for despite the long and crucial years of European domination in Asia, the debt is one-sided. Among other things, the Chinese contributed moveable type, gunpowder, and the magnetic compass--perhaps the three cornerstones of the modern world. And it was the Arabs who kept alive the ancient Greeks' studuies of science and medicine throughout the Dark Ages, while on other levels, India and Japan influenced diverse facets of Western art, culture, and philosophy.--From jacket.