The Silk Road: A New History - Valerie Hansen

Written by Valerie Hansen
Read by Anna Perrin
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Release date: July 31, 2018
Duration: 09:54:24

A history of the Silk Road based mainly on the archaeological sources and textual analysis. The book is divided into seven chapters one each for the oasis towns of Niya, Loulan, Kucha, Turfan, Samarkand, Chang’an, Dunhuang, and Khotan. Six of them are in modern day north-west china and Samarkand is in modern day Uzbekistan. The author uses all the recent archaeological finds to show us the cultural, economic and social history of these Silk Road communities. The book starts from the earliest evidence available, from about second century CE and ends with the first millennium CE, at which point the advent of Islam made the once diverse communities homogeneous.

This book disabuses us of the romantic notion of the Silk Road. Of long train of caravans traveling long distances carrying exotic goods from East to west. Most of the evidence rather points towards a more localized, small-scale trade made small groups of itinerant traders. The goods reached west through trickle trade rather than merchants directly traveling from China to Rome.

Rather than trade, the most important aspects of the Silk Road was the cultural exchange of ideas. The oasis towns of the Silk Road were a cultural milieu of multiple migrant communities from India, Iran and central Asia. The library cave at Dunhuang gives us a good idea of the rich linguistic and cultural diversity in the Silk Road communities. Number of texts on Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Nestorianism, Manichaeism and even some on Judaism were found here. Through the exchange of religions, art, languages and new technologies, the Silk Road did play a very important role in shaping the modern world.

“What is more astonishing is the level of historical detail found in little scraps of paper. Religious beliefs that haven’t survived elsewhere, letters from women, accounts, all manner of things enable Hansen to recreate life in these areas. This book is a very interesting account of life in Central Asia and one I would very highly recommend “

PDF included so you can follow the “road”.