History written from the vantage of a single nation distorts the past; viewing civilizations as interacting, borrowing, and declining in relation to one another reveals that no people holds permanent superiority. Periods of European dominance are recent and temporary, and Asian civilizations were advanced while Europe was comparatively backward.
Empires fall not mainly from outside attack but from internal decay: concentration of wealth, exploitation of the many by the few, and loss of the vitality that built them. The external invader usually only finishes off a structure already rotted from within.
Nehru wrote this entire world history as a series of letters to his teenage daughter Indira while he was imprisoned by the British in the early 1930s, working from memory and limited books without a library. The constraint of prison and audience produced history told as personal narrative rather than detached scholarship.
Judge historical figures and movements by whether they advanced or obstructed the condition of ordinary people, not by their fame, conquests, or the splendor of their monuments. Celebrated kings and grand buildings often represent extracted labor and suffering rather than genuine human progress.