Thirty years before the birth of Jesus, the ancient world is trembling on its axis. Cleopatra is dead, Egypt has fallen, and Emperor Augustus is remaking Rome in his image. The poet Virgil makes a prophecy that causes a public uproar: a godlike man who will bring paradise on earth.

In Year Zero, award-winning journalist Moritz Aisslinger reimagines the decades around the turn of the millennium as a single, charged moment in global history. From the teeming streets of Rome to the dozens of ships crossing the Red Sea daily; from the palaces of China's usurper Wang Mang to Djenne-Djeno, in Mali, an egalitarian city with no palaces nor marks of class; he follows the men and women whose lives were caught up in an age of upheaval.

A former slave girl becomes a queen; a hostage returns home to lead a rebellion; a North African scholar navigates courts and coups; and, of course, a simple fisherman on the Sea of Galilee meets a teacher and walks away from everything he knows. Together they form a kaleidoscopic portrait of a world on the brink.

This is the story of how a few turbulent decades forged ideas of power, justice and faith that still shape our lives today.