The award-winning film-maker and academic Henry Louis Gates Jr travels the length and breadth of Africa to examine the continent's epic history. This episode charts the emergence of Christianity and Islam and examines how the two religions reshaped Africa between the first and the 12th centuries AD, as well as for centuries thereafter.

Gates also recounts the strategic importance of the Horn of Africa - a meeting place between the Red and Arabian seas that has served as a vital trade corridor between Africa, the Middle East and Europe for millennia. Show less