The Silk Roads

The Silk Roads
Author: Peter Frankopan
Publsiher: Vintage
Total Pages: 688
Release: 2016-02-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781101946336

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INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Far more than a history of the Silk Roads, this book is truly a revelatory new history of the world, promising to destabilize notions of where we come from and where we are headed next. "A rare book that makes you question your assumptions about the world.” —The Wall Street Journal From the Middle East and its political instability to China and its economic rise, the vast region stretching eastward from the Balkans across the steppe and South Asia has been thrust into the global spotlight in recent years. Frankopan teaches us that to understand what is at stake for the cities and nations built on these intricate trade routes, we must first understand their astounding pasts. Frankopan realigns our understanding of the world, pointing us eastward. It was on the Silk Roads that East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures and religions. From the rise and fall of empires to the spread of Buddhism and the advent of Christianity and Islam, right up to the great wars of the twentieth century—this book shows how the fate of the West has always been inextricably linked to the East. Also available: The New Silk Roads, a timely exploration of the dramatic and profound changes our world is undergoing right now—as seen from the perspective of the rising powers of the East.

The Silk Roads

The Silk Roads
Author: Geordie Torr
Publsiher: Arcturus Publishing
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781398809765

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Take an intrepid journey through the history of the Silk Roads with this brilliant reference book. Traversing snowy mountain passes, vast, forbidding deserts and stormy seas, these ancient trade routes were about much more than the movement of goods, they paved the way for an unprecedented period of cultural exchange, diplomacy and conflict creating a legacy that continues to affect global geopolitics in the 21st century. Forged over millennia through a desire for enterprise, the Silk Roads have had an profound influence on Eurasia and beyond, connecting cultures, languages, customs and religions. And with China now working to reopen this ancient trade network, the time is right to shine a new light on its history and impact. This edition has been updated with an expanded chapter on China's efforts to reopen this ancient trade network through the Belt and Road Initiative and the many impacts it has had along the way, from its ambitious infrastructure projects to new cities emerging along its route to the growth of a digital silk road, Geordie Torr examines the profound impacts of the revival of the world's greatest trading route. With helpful timelines and useful information boxes, The Silk Roads gives you everything you need to master the history of this world-changing region.

The Silk Road in World History

The Silk Road in World History
Author: Xinru Liu
Publsiher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2010
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780195338102

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The ancient trade routes that made up the Silk Road were some of the great conduits of cultural and material exchange in world history. In this intriguing book, Xinru Liu reveals both why and how this long-distance trade in luxury goods emerged in the late third century BCE, following its story through to the Mongol conquest. Liu starts with China's desperate need for what the Chinese called "the heavenly horses" of Central Asia, and describes how the traders who brought these horses also brought other exotic products, some all the way from the Mediterranean. Likewise, the Roman Empire, as a result of its imperial ambition as well as the desire of its citizens for Chinese silk, responded with easterly explorations for trade. The book shows how the middle men, the Kushan Empire, spread Buddhism to China. Missionaries and pilgrims facilitated cave temples along the mountainous routes and monasteries in various oases and urban centers, forming the backbone of the Silk Road. The author also explains how Islamic and Mongol conquerors in turn controlled the various routes until the rise of sea travel diminished their importance.

The First Crusade

The First Crusade
Author: Peter Frankopan
Publsiher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2016-10-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780674970786

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According to tradition, the First Crusade began at the instigation of Pope Urban II and culminated in July 1099, when thousands of western European knights liberated Jerusalem from the rising menace of Islam. But what if the First Crusade's real catalyst lay far to the east of Rome? In this groundbreaking book, countering nearly a millennium of scholarship, Peter Frankopan reveals the untold history of the First Crusade. Nearly all historians of the First Crusade focus on the papacy and its willing warriors in the West, along with innumerable popular tales of bravery, tragedy, and resilience. In sharp contrast, Frankopan examines events from the East, in particular from Constantinople, seat of the Christian Byzantine Empire. The result is revelatory. The true instigator of the First Crusade, we see, was the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who in 1095, with his realm under siege from the Turks and on the point of collapse, begged the pope for military support. Basing his account on long-ignored eastern sources, Frankopan also gives a provocative and highly original explanation of the world-changing events that followed the First Crusade. The Vatican's victory cemented papal power, while Constantinople, the heart of the still-vital Byzantine Empire, never recovered. As a result, both Alexios and Byzantium were consigned to the margins of history. From Frankopan's revolutionary work, we gain a more faithful understanding of the way the taking of Jerusalem set the stage for western Europe's dominance up to the present day and shaped the modern world.

The New Silk Roads

The New Silk Roads
Author: Peter Frankopan
Publsiher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2018
Genre: Asia
ISBN: 9781526607423

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From the Sunday Times and internationally bestselling author of The Silk Roads: everything you need to know about the present and future of the world'Masterly mapping out of a new world order' Evening Standard'Frankopan is a brilliant guide to terra incognita' The Times The New Silk Roads - Peter Frankopan's follow-up to the 'Book of the Decade', The Silk Roads - takes a fresh look at the network of relationships being formed along the length and breadth of the Silk Roads today.The world is changing dramatically and in an age of Brexit and Trump, the themes of isolation and fragmentation permeating the western world stand in sharp contrast to events along the Silk Roads, where ties have been strengthened and mutual cooperation established.Following the Silk Roads eastwards from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, The New Silk Roads provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected. In this prescient contemporary history, Peter Frankopan assesses the global reverberations of these continual shifts in the centre of power - all too often absent from headlines in the west. This important - and ultimately hopeful - book asks us to reread who we are and where we are in the world, illuminating the themes on which all our lives and livelihoods depend.The Silk Roads, a major reassessment of world history, has sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

The Silk Roads

The Silk Roads
Author: Vadime Elisseeff
Publsiher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2000
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1571812210

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A look at the cultural, or intercultural, exchange that took place in the Silk Roads and the role this has played in the shaping of cultures and civilizations.

Life Along the Silk Road

Life Along the Silk Road
Author: Susan Whitfield
Publsiher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520232143

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The Silk Road was the most traveled trade route for over 1,000 years until it was eclipsed by maritime trade. Whitfield presents composite stories of merchants, soldiers, artists, and princesses who traveled the route, and presents its history through their personal experiences.

Silk Roads

Silk Roads
Author: Susan Whitfield
Publsiher: Unknown
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Silk Road
ISBN: 0500021570

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As world powers realign their cultural, economic and political outlooks, there is no better time to consider how Afro-Eurasia's complex network of ancient trade routes - which spanned the vastness of the steppe, vertiginous mountain ranges, fertile river plains and forbidding deserts across the continents and on to the seas beyond - fostered economic activity and cultural, political and technological communication. From silk to slaves, fashion to music, religion to science the movement of interaction of goods, people and ideas was crucial to the flourishing of peoples and their cultures across this vast region. Edited by Susan Whitfield, an established authority on the subject, with contributions from over 80 leading scholars from across the globe, Silk Roads situates the ancient routes against the landscapes that defined them, to reveal the raw materials that they produced, the means of travel that were employed to traverse them and the communities that were shaped by them. Organized by terrain, from steppe to desert to ocean, each section includes detailed maps, a historical overview, thematic essays and features showcasing art, buildings and archaeological discoveries. A wealth of photographs reveals the breathtaking and often forbidding landscapes encountered by travellers and traders through the millennia. With one section inscribed as a World Heritage Corridor by UNESCO in 2014 and others to follow, and China claiming the Silk Roads as the precursor of its Belt Road Initiative, this network of ancient trade routes and the interaction along them has never been of greater interest or importance than today. This beautiful publication honours the astonishing diversity in the way cultures advance and flourish not in spite of their differences, but because of them.