As world powers realign their cultural outlooks, there is no better time to consider how Eurasia’s complex network of ancient trade routes – which spanned high mountain ranges, open river plains and vast deserts across the continent and on to the seas beyond – fostered economic activity and cultural communication. From perfume to spice, from religion to art, the trade and exchange of goods and ideas was crucial to the development of civilizations throughout the region, and the world. This book is the first comprehensive illustrated publication on the Silk Roads. Edited by an established authority on the subject, The 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 formed by them. Organized by terrain, from steppe to desert to ocean, each section includes detailed maps, a historical overview, thematic essays and features showcasing iconic art objects, buildings and archaeological discoveries. A wealth of photographs reveal the breathtaking landscapes of Central Asia, mostly unseen by those who haven’t travelled the routes. Designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2014, the Silk Road has never been of greater interest or importance than today. This beautiful publication honours the astonishing diversity in the way cultures can advance and flourish not in spite of their differences, but because of them.

Silk Roads Peoples, Cultures, Landscapes /anglais

Arts & Photography

Whitfield, Susan

History & Criticism

Thames&Hudson

In the first 1,000 years after Christ, merchants, missionaries, monks, mendicants, and military men traveled on the vast network of Central Asian tracks that became known as the Silk Road. Linking Europe, India, and the Far East, the route passed through many countries and many settlements, from the splendid city of Samarkand to tiny desert hamlets. Susan Whitfield creates a rich and varied portrait of life along the greatest trade route in history in a vivid, lively, and learned account that spans the eighth through the tenth centuries. Recounting the lives of ten individuals who lived at different times during this period, Whitfield draws on contemporary sources and uses firsthand accounts whenever possible to reconstruct the history of the route through the personal experiences of these characters. Life along the Silk Road brings alive the now ruined and sand-covered desert towns and their inhabitants. Readers encounter an Ulghur nomad from the Gobi Desert accompanying a herd of steppe ponies for sale to the Chinese state; Ah-long, widow of a prosperous merchant, now reduced to poverty and forced to resort to law and charity to survive; and the Chinese princess sent as part of a diplomatic deal to marry a Turkish kaghan. In the process we learn about women's lives, modes of communication, weapons, types of cosmetics, methods of treating altitude sickness in the Tibetan army, and ways that merchants cheated their customers. Throughout the narrative, Whitfield conveys a strong sense of what life was like for ordinary men and women on the Silk Road--everyone from itinerant Buddhist monks, to Zoroastrians and Nestorian Christians seeking converts among the desert settlers, to storytellers, musicians, courtesans, diviners, peddlers, and miracle-workers who offered their wares in the marketplaces and at temple fairs. A work of great scholarship, Life along the Silk Road is at the same time extremely accessible and entertaining.

Life along the Silk Road

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

University of California Press

Life Along the Silk Road

Business & Money

Economics

In this long-awaited second edition, Susan Whitfield broadens her exploration of the Silk Road and expands her rich and varied portrait of life along the great pre-modern trade routes of Eurasia. This new edition is comprehensively updated to support further understanding of themes relevant to global and comparative history and remains the only history of the Silk Road to reconstruct the route through the personal experiences of travelers. In the first 1,000 years after Christ, merchants, missionaries, monks, mendicants, and military men traveled the vast network of Central Asian tracks that became known as the Silk Road. Whitfield recounts the lives of twelve individuals who lived at different times during this period, including two characters new to this edition: an African shipmaster and a Persian traveler and writer during the Arab caliphate. With these additional tales, Whitfield extends both geographical and chronological scope, bringing into view the maritime links across the Indian Ocean and depicting the network of north-south routes from the Baltic to the Gulf. Throughout the narrative, Whitfield conveys a strong sense of what life was like for ordinary men and women on the Silk Road, the individuals usually forgotten to history. A work of great scholarship, Life along the Silk Road continues to be both accessible and entertaining.

Life along the Silk Road: Second Edition

History

Asia

Silk, Slaves, and Stupas: Material Culture of the Silk Road

Following her bestselling Life Along the Silk Road, Susan Whitfield widens her exploration of the great cultural highway with a new captivating portrait focusing on material things. Silk, Slaves, and Stupas tells the stories of ten very different objects, considering their interaction with the peoples and cultures of the Silk Road—those who made them, carried them, received them, used them, sold them, worshipped them, and, in more recent times, bought them, conserved them, and curated them. From a delicate pair of earrings from a steppe tomb to a massive stupa deep in Central Asia, a hoard of Kushan coins stored in an Ethiopian monastery to a Hellenistic glass bowl from a southern Chinese tomb, and a fragment of Byzantine silk wrapping the bones of a French saint to a Bactrian ewer depicting episodes from the Trojan War, these objects show us something of the cultural diversity and interaction along these trading routes of Afro-Eurasia. Exploring the labor, tools, materials, and rituals behind these various objects, Whitfield infuses her narrative with delightful details as the objects journey through time, space, and meaning. Silk, Slaves, and Stupas is a lively, visual, and tangible way to understand the Silk Road and the cultural, economic, and technical changes of the late antique and medieval worlds.

Following her bestselling Life Along the Silk Road, Susan Whitfield widens her exploration of the great cultural highway with a new captivating portrait focusing on material things. Silk, Slaves, and Stupas tells the stories of ten very different objects, considering their interaction with the peoples and cultures of the Silk Road—those who made them, carried them, received them, used them, sold them, worshipped them, and, in more recent times, bought them, conserved them, and curated them. From a delicate pair of earrings from a steppe tomb to a massive stupa deep in Central Asia, a hoard of Kushan coins stored in an Ethiopian monastery to a Hellenistic glass bowl from a southern Chinese tomb, and a fragment of Byzantine silk wrapping the bones of a French saint to a Bactrian ewer depicting episodes from the Trojan War, these objects show us something of the cultural diversity and interaction along these trading routes of Afro-Eurasia. Exploring the labor, tools, materials, and rituals behind these various objects, Whitfield infuses her narrative with delightful details as the objects journey through time, space, and meaning. Silk, Slaves, and Stupas is a lively, visual, and tangible way to understand the Silk Road and the cultural, economic, and technical changes of the late antique and medieval worlds.

Helps students improve their reading skills by explaining the structure of sentences and the importance of focusing on main ideas and provides numerous exercises and sample exams to work on

How to Improve Your Reading Comprehension (Language Skills Concise Guide)

Davis, Bertha

Teen & Young Adult

Franklin Watts

For over two thousand years the Silk Road has attracted those wishing to make money, converts, diplomatic deals, conquests- or those simply looking to find a quiet place of retreat. Today the name continues to beguile, conjuring up images of exotic cities, gorgeous silks and other luxuries, and people and lives far removed from us in time, space and experience. Yet the residents of the Silk Road kingdoms and the journeying monks, merchants, soldiers and others who passed through had concerns which are familiar to us all. The new book gives us a glimpse into these lives through the manuscripts, artefacts, paintings, coins and textiles which lay hidden in the desert ruins until their discovery in the early twentieth century.

The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith

The British Library

In 1900 a secret sealed-up cave was discovered by a Daoist priest among the many caves dotting the cliff face at Dunhuang, an oasis town on the Silk Road. Its entrance had been plastered over and disguised but, when opened, it was revealed to be crammed with ancient Buddhist manuscripts, printed documents and paintings. The sheer volume and exceptional condition of the finds, preserved in the desert climate since the early eleventh century, excited international archaeological and popular interest. In 1907, Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1942), a Hungarian-born explorer employed by the British in India, was the first foreigner to gain access to the secret cave archive at Dunhuang. His expeditions, published in full in the 1920s, made him a celebrity whose intrepid exploits helped to reveal the long-forgotten history and exotic geography of the Silk Road.

Aurel Stein On the Silk Road /anglais

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

BRITISH MUSEUM

Quotes and excerpts from such literary figures as Maugham, Theroux, Auden, and Isherwood offer a look at the geography and people of China

China: A Literary Companion

Grayling, A.C.

Science & Math

Hodder&Stoughton

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Whitfield, Susan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Whitfield, Susan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Whitfield, Susan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Silk Roads Peoples, Cultures, Landscapes /anglais

Life along the Silk Road

Life Along the Silk Road

Life along the Silk Road: Second Edition

Silk, Slaves, and Stupas: Material Culture of the Silk Road

Silk, Slaves, and Stupas: Material Culture of the Silk Road

How to Improve Your Reading Comprehension (Language Skills Concise Guide)

The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith

Aurel Stein On the Silk Road /anglais

China: A Literary Companion