Many thousands of years ago, we began inventing stories, not just for entertainment but to organize for survival, and to find purpose and meaning. Ultimately these became the basis for empires, civilizations, and cultures, and as Tamim Ansary suggests here, when various narratives began to collide, the encounters produced everything from confusion and war to religious awakenings and intellectual breakthroughs. Through vivid stories studded with insights, Ansary illuminates the historical consequences of the unique human capacity to invent and communicate abstract ideas. In doing so, he also explains the narratives now shaping us, the reasons we still battle one another, and the future we may yet create.