The Silk Roads

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan

Frankopan was fascinated with maps as a child and later as an adolescent.

He writes, Many stories set me on the path to looking at the world's past in a different way. But one stood out in particular. Greek mythology had it that Zeus, father of the gods, released two eagles, one at each end of the earth, and commanded them to fly towards each other. A sacred stone, the omphalos--the navel of the world--was placed where they met, to enable communication with the divine. ... I remember gazing at my map when I first heard this tale, wondering where the eagles would have met. i imagined them taking off from the shores of the western Atlantic and the Pacific coast of China and heading inland. The precise position changed, depending where i placed my finger to start measuring equal distances from east and west. But I always ended up somewhere between the Black Sea and the Himalayas" (xix).

Frankopan explains further that, European history divides Asia into three zones: the Near, Middle, and Far East. Often, the Middle East seems to be the locus of ancient and modern civilization. For Westerners, this idea seems strange when we are taught that the Mediterranean is the heart of civilization. However, looking at the word "Mediterranean" literally "the centre of the world", this fixation on locations in the heart of Asia makes sense.

Frankopan traces the history of the center of world from the ancient, 400 B.C., to the present day. The  Silk Road or Roads were created in 119 B.C. when China opened the Gansu corridor after decades of military campaigns: beyond the Pamir Mountains lay a new world. In the Han dynasty, Silk was an important commodity and eventually became international currency.

Although we might refer to the Silk Road, this transcontinental highway was many highways. Silk, grains, jewels, spices, tea, oil, even slaves, and other goods were bought and sold. Ideas, religions, cultures were exchanged and shared. Frankopan's book is a study of the world in transition and in transformation. The Twenty-First Century has seen the emergence of The New Silk Road in the various -stans of the former USSR, in Afganistan, Iraq, Iran, in western China, and elsewhere. The threads of the Silk Roads are being re-knotted, rewoven, and restored.