Description: The Silk Road was the contemporary name for a complex of ancient trade routes linking East Asia with Central Asia, South Asia, and the Mediterranean world. Using demand and supply as the framework for analyzing the formation and development of the Silk Road, this book will examine the dynamics of the interactions of the nomadic pastoralists with sedentary agriculturalists, and the spread of new ideas, religions, and values into the world of commerce thus illustrating the cultural forces underlying material transactions. This effort at tracing the interconnections of the diverse participants in the transcontinental Silk Road exchange will demonstrate that the world had been linked through economic and ideological forces long before the modern era.
Review Quotes: "A welcome addition to the New Oxford World History series...Any general reader interested in silk or textiles will enjoy this book, but so too will one who is captivated by any other aspect of the Silk Road, for it provides a quick but fascinating historical narrative. As a textbook for a world history class, its appeal lies not only in the romance of the Silk Road but also in its use of material culture to write world history by connecting economic and political activities with the religious values of various traditions."--Journal of Asian Studies
"A carefully constructed narrative and analysis...This is an excellent text that will be useful for orientating students and introducing them to the sources and interpretive problems of ancient and medieval Central Asian history."--World History Bulletin