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The Silk Roads

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Silk Roads
First edition book cover
AuthorPeter Frankopan
IllustratorNeil Packer (illustrated edition, 2018)
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistory
PublisherBloomsbury
Publication date
August 27, 2015
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback), e-book, audiobook
Pages636
ISBN978-1-4088-3997-3
OCLC943517265
Followed byThe New Silk Roads 
Websitehttps://www.peterfrankopan.com/the-silk-roads.html

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World is a 2015 non-fiction book written by English historian Peter Frankopan, a historian at the University of Oxford. A new abridged edition was illustrated by Neil Packer.[1] The full text is divided into 25 chapters. The author combines the development of the world with the Silk Road.

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Transcription

A banker in London sends the latest stock info to his colleagues in Hong Kong in less than a second. With a single click, a customer in New York orders electronics made in Beijing, transported across the ocean within days by cargo plane or container ship. The speed and volume at which goods and information move across the world today is unprecedented in history. But global exchange itself is older than we think, reaching back over 2,000 years along a 5,000 mile stretch known as the Silk Road. The Silk Road wasn't actually a single road, but a network of multiple routes that gradually emerged over centuries, connecting to various settlements and to each other thread by thread. The first agricultural civilizations were isolated places in fertile river valleys, their travel impeded by surrounding geography and fear of the unknown. But as they grew, they found that the arid deserts and steps on their borders were inhabited, not by the demons of folklore, but nomadic tribes on horseback. The Scythians, who ranged from Hungary to Mongolia, had come in contact with the civilizations of Greece, Egypt, India and China. These encounters were often less than peaceful. But even through raids and warfare, as well as trade and protection of traveling merchants in exchange for tariffs, the nomads began to spread goods, ideas and technologies between cultures with no direct contact. One of the most important strands of this growing web was the Persian Royal Road, completed by Darius the First in the 5th century BCE. Stretching nearly 2,000 miles from the Tigris River to the Aegean Sea, its regular relay points allowed goods and messages to travel at nearly 1/10 the time it would take a single traveler. With Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia, and expansion into Central Asia through capturing cities like Samarkand, and establishing new ones like Alexandria Eschate, the network of Greek, Egyptian, Persian and Indian culture and trade extended farther east than ever before, laying the foundations for a bridge between China and the West. This was realized in the 2nd century BCE, when an ambassador named Zhang Qian, sent to negotiate with nomads in the West, returned to the Han Emperor with tales of sophisticated civilizations, prosperous trade and exotic goods beyond the western borders. Ambassadors and merchants were sent towards Persia and India to trade silk and jade for horses and cotton, along with armies to secure their passage. Eastern and western routes gradually linked together into an integrated system spanning Eurasia, enabling cultural and commercial exhange farther than ever before. Chinese goods made their way to Rome, causing an outflow of gold that led to a ban on silk, while Roman glassware was highly prized in China. Military expeditions in Central Asia also saw encounters between Chinese and Roman soldiers. Possibly even transmitting crossbow technology to the Western world. Demand for exotic and foreign goods and the profits they brought, kept the strands of the Silk Road in tact, even as the Roman Empire disintegrated and Chinese dynasties rose and fell. Even Mongolian hoards, known for pillage and plunder, actively protected the trade routes, rather than disrupting them. But along with commodities, these routes also enabled the movement of traditions, innovations, ideologies and languages. Originating in India, Buddhism migrated to China and Japan to become the dominant religion there. Islam spread from the Arabian Penninsula into South Asia, blending with native beliefs and leading to new faiths, like Sikhism. And gunpowder made its way from China to the Middle East forging the futures of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughul Empires. In a way, the Silk Road's success led to its own demise as new maritime technologies, like the magnetic compass, found their way to Europe, making long land routes obsolete. Meanwhile, the collapse of Mongol rule was followed by China's withdrawal from international trade. But even though the old routes and networks did not last, they had changed the world forever and there was no going back. Europeans seeking new maritime routes to the riches they knew awaited in East Asia led to the Age of Exploration and expansion into Africa and the Americas. Today, global interconnectedness shapes our lives like never before. Canadian shoppers buy t-shirts made in Bangladesh, Japanese audiences watch British television shows, and Tunisians use American software to launch a revolution. The impact of globalization on culture and economy is indisputable. But whatever its benefits and drawbacks, it is far from a new phenomenon. And though the mountains, deserts and oceans that once separated us are now circumvented through super sonic vehicles, cross-continental communication cables, and signals beamed through space rather than caravans traveling for months, none of it would have been possible without the pioneering cultures whose efforts created the Silk Road: history's first world wide web.

Reception

Reviews on The Silk Roads were generally positive. Positive reviews appeared in The Guardian,[2] The Independent,[3] The Telegraph,[4] The Times.[5] and The New York Review of Books.[6] The Guardian's review of the book in 2015 was positive: "The Silk Roads is full of intriguing insights and some fascinating details".[7] As early as 1587, playwright Christopher Marlowe referred to Persia/Iran as "the centre of the globe," and many historians agreed. Frankopan, on the other hand, went further than many others before him, diving deeper into the archives and quoting more manuscripts to support his argument.[2] The Independent considers the book "A bold, if imperfect, study that paints a picture of the past from a new perspective".[8] The New York Times commented that "The danger of glibness is never far, but it is always held off, and I have to say that 'Silk Roads' is what my old friend the historian Norman Stone used to describe as 'an old-fashioned good book'".[9]

According to anthropologist and archaeologist Nikolay Kradin, each chapter's heading is highly intriguing.[10] He adds that Frankopan masterfully balances history with literature, so that the book is accessible even to those who are unfamiliar with history.[10] Researchers K. Laug and S. Rance concluded that the advent of the Silk Road caused countries to seek shared interests as a result of a lack of collaboration among European countries. The rise of fascism reflected a change in the economic balance of power. In the shifting economic and political structure of Western countries, Frankopan rightly points out the weaknesses of liberal democracy.[11]

According to the aforementioned K. Laug and S. Rance, the Silk Road helped India's economy to grow swiftly, but Frankopan failed to account for the country's rapid population expansion and the increasing wealth gap.[11] Marcal Sanmartí found several minor inaccuracies in the book, as well as other components that were missing, although for a 650-page book this may be considered insignificant. He concludes his study by telling the reader that this book is an anti-Eurocentrism collection, not a tool for comprehending world history. Sanmartí disagrees with Frankopan's assertion that there is no longer any space on Earth for nations to compete for, implying that Eurasia would return to its former position as the world's centre..[12]

Frankopan's dismissive attitude towards Northern European engagement in the Asian slave trade, while ignoring the substantial demand for such captives in Central Asian and Middle Eastern markets, is also problematic, according to Alexandra Leonzini. Throughout the book, Frankopan emphasizes the Europeans' heinous activities while ignoring the equally heinous atrocities committed simultaneously in Eurasia.[13] Ramachandra Guha argues that from the beginning of the book through Columbus' voyages, the description of the Black Death brings the subject into the modern part, and afterwards it has lost the "focus" it was meant to express. To Guha the book provides an outdated history that lacks a description of much of human life. Poor people and women do not appear. Frankopan points out the role in history of mainly European personalities, without mentioning figures such as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk or Ho Chi Minh.[14]

References

  1. ^ Frankopan, Peter; Packer, Neil (2018). The Silk Roads: An Illustrated New history of the World. Bloomsbury Childrens Books. p. 3. ISBN 978-1547600212.
  2. ^ a b Sattin, Anthony (29 September 2015). "The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan review – a frustrating trail". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
  3. ^ Irwin, Robert (13 August 2015). "The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan: All loud on the Eastern Front". Independent. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
  4. ^ Hughes, Bettany (15 August 2015). "The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, review: 'charismatic'". Telegraph. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
  5. ^ Gerard DeGroot, Gerard. "The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan".
  6. ^ Thubron, Colin (21 April 2016). A Different Vision of History by Peter Frankopan, review. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
  7. ^ "The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan review – a frustrating trail". the Guardian. 2015-09-29. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  8. ^ "Book review: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World". The Independent. 2015-08-13. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  9. ^ "Follow the Silk Road, Book by Book". The New York Times. 2020-05-11. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  10. ^ a b Kradin, Nikolay (2017). "A Review of Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads: A New History of the World. Cliodynamics: the Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History". Cliodynamics. 7 (2): 288–289. doi:10.21237/C7CLIO7233333.
  11. ^ a b Laug, Katja; Rance, Shayla (2020). "The New Silk Roads". Reinvention. 31. doi:10.31273/reinvention.v13i1.617. S2CID 219088260.
  12. ^ Sanmarti, Marcal (2017). "Ressenya: The Silk Roads: A new history of the wor/Peter Frankopan (2015)". Entremons: UPF Journal of World History: 154–157.
  13. ^ Leonzini, Alexandra (2016-10-10). "The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan". Global Histories: A Student Journal. 2 (1). doi:10.17169/GHSJ.2016.69.
  14. ^ Guha, Ramachandra (2016-04-15). "'The Silk Roads: A New History of the World' by Peter Frankopan". Financial Times. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
This page was last edited on 8 February 2024, at 19:13
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