An amateur historian's favorite books about the Silk Road

bbwb 6 days ago 32 commentsRead Article on bookdna.com

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johngossman•4 days ago

Good list. It does not include "Silk Roads" by Frankopan, which I agree with. That's a good read but much more a history of world trade (hence the plural) and strangely western-centric. I saw strangely because in the introduction Frankopan says he wanted to write a history from the point of view on central Asia, but its not that at all. Dalyrymple's "Golden Road" succeeds at Frankopan's objective and I found it much better in general. I don't want to sound too negative on "Silk Roads" but I think the title is subtly misleading if you want to learn about the trade general referred to as the Silk Road.

Mainan_Tagonist•4 days ago

Yes, Frankopan's Silk Roads was a disappointment to say the least, I was really expecting an enlightening history of the middle east, starting from the early interrelations between the various civilisations (Egypt, Babylon, Harappan) and the progression through time (for example mentioning the Periplus of Roman adventurers into the far east). Good histories of China (Goldman/Fairbanks), and India (Keay) had whetted my appetite, and I think I'll need to read Dalrymple to be fully sated.

paganel•4 days ago

About this book: "Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders", and especially about this source of information:

> Shlomo Goitein used the documents that were serendipitously discovered in the geniza of the Cairo synagogue

I'm still waiting for a proper "inclusion" of their contents in the "main" historical discourse, it's a pity that there aren't much many historians going through them and using their contents. From the dedicated wiki page [1]:

> The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled the Cairo Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000[1] Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the genizah or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, Egypt. (...) comprise the largest and most diverse collection of medieval manuscripts in the world.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Geniza

qart•4 days ago

The author of the first book listed there explains there was no ancient Silk Road. This concept was dreamt up in 1877.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Ki4UQ20tWQk

bwb•4 days ago

ya, there were a bunch of trade routes along this path to all the different regions/cities. We just named the entire concept the "Silk Road" in the 1800s (it was coined in 1877 by Ferdinand von Richthofen).

ripe•4 days ago

Yes. Moreover:

"While engaged in a survey of China, the baron was charged with dreaming up a route for a railway linking Berlin to Beijing. This he named die Seidenstrassen, the Silk Roads. It was not until 1938 that the term Silk Road appeared in English, as the title of a popular book by a Nazi-sympathising Swedish explorer, Sven Hedin."

-- historian William Dalrymple

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/oct/06/the-sil...

usrnm•4 days ago

Just like there was no Bronze age, Middle Ages or Third World. It doesn't mean that we cannot use the terminology or that it's necessarily wrong, it's just limited and we need to understand the limits

PokemonNoGo•4 days ago

>Third world

Non-aligned countries didn't exist? Sorry I need some coffee and I'm feeling a little thick at the moment.

usrnm•4 days ago

They did exist the same way people and goods did travel across Eurasia, but it wasn't some defined political or economical entity and they did not call themselves "the third world"

oersted•4 days ago

Is that the meaning of “Third World”? As in East/West/Other?

I always thought it was more about Developed/Developing/Undeveloped, mostly in terms of the industrial transition.

But, if we are being honest, it’s used a lot more as “third class”.

I suppose indeed that it is not really a well defined “thing”, like the Silk Road.

BurningFrog•4 days ago

This just says that no one was aware the Silk Road existed, much less had named it that.

But it did exist, and goods were shipped between Europe and China without either side being aware the other existed, which at least I think is pretty darn amazing!

wduquette•4 days ago

I'd add Owen Lattimore's Desert Road to Turkestan: Lattimore traveled through the Central Asian deserts with a camel caravan in the 1930's, one of few westerner's ever to do so; and also Richard Hopkirk's Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, about the first European explorers to enter that region.

Mainan_Tagonist•4 days ago

Tim Severin is referenced in the list, so i would suggest as an addition Tracking Marco Polo by the very same author, a fun read indeed. From Goodreads: Tim Severin took up the challenge offered from antiquity by Marco Polo. Using the great explorer's journals as a route guide, Severin followed him all the way from Venice to Afghanistan - on a motorbike. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1735662.Tracking_Marco_P...

timdiggerm•4 days ago

This list is just a promo blog post for the author's book

Insanity•4 days ago

I fail to see why that devalues this list of books. It's not like he's _only_ listing his own book.

ownlife•4 days ago

Arguably, it devalues this list of books because it calls into question its credibility and its author's seriousness.

Insanity•4 days ago

If this was a pure advertising piece, I might agree. In this case, it's more "hey I wrote a book on this, these are other books that are great". That's kinda different at least in my mind.

johngossman•4 days ago

While I generally do not trust information from "advertisements", in this case I don't see how this is any worse than including a list of sources in the bibliography. What this could be is an attempt to use those other books to sell the author's through some reflected glory (or SEO-fu) but in that case, the author is still incentivized to recommend good books.

bwb•4 days ago

Just to note, I made the site to interview authors and get their 5 favorite books on something they are passionate about. And I promote their book alongside the list to help them bump into readers. Authors generally just want to share something they are passionate about; it isn't about money, as nobody is writing a book to make money.

It is a great way to meet books, I think :)

And has been fun to build!

bwb•6 days ago

Great list by an absolute expert on the subject :)

I'm hoping to do the Silk Route by bike in the next couple of years. TAD Global Cycling puts together yearly runs, and it looks amazing: https://tdaglobalcycling.com/silk-route

shrx•4 days ago

I traveled some of the countries along the way last year, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan (by hiking and offroad vehicles). The landscape is beautiful, but be very prepared to survive in the scorching sun and dust in the desert for days without any option to resupply food and water. We met some solo cyclists along the way, I have great respect for those individuals. For example, this is how the main road looks like in some parts of Tajikistan: https://i.imgur.com/MlZauBn.jpeg The traffic on these roads consists mostly of Chinese trucks and an occasional crazy traveler like us. Note how a secondary track emerged along the side of the main road because the original one became so filled with potholes.

TFNA•4 days ago

"be very prepared to survive in the scorching sun and dust in the desert for days without any option to resupply food and water"

I have done Central Asia from Europe to China by bike twice, most recently 2024. Absolutely no problem with resupplying food and water daily. There are food stops and railway-worker infrastructure in the Kazakh and Uzbek deserts. And while Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have a lot of wild mountain beauty, they are still inhabited. Indeed, local families earn some money by catering to cyclists.

bwb•4 days ago

Ah great to hear :), thanks!

Did you do it solo or with someone or a group?

bwb•4 days ago

Nice picture :)

The nice thing about going with a group is that it comes with a support vehicle and water/food/bag carrying. Doing it on my own would be about 10x more intense in terms of prep, I think. I've watched a few biking videos where they started getting close to the edge on water and had to ask random houses they finally found.

defrost•4 days ago

If you like an epic trek, there's always horseback: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna20925119

contingencies•4 days ago

Life Along the Silk Road, Susan Whitfield. (read twice)

Through the Jade Gate to Rome, John E. Hill. (browsed)

The Silk Road: A New History, Valerie Hansen. (yet to buy but looks awesome)