The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Communism, inspired by the political theories of Karl Marx and championed in the 20th century by world powers such as the Soviet Union and China, is an ideology that aims at the creation of a classless society and the abolition of private ownership of the means of economic production. In the Soviet Union, communism was presented as “a logical reaction” to the social inequality that arose from industrial capitalism. The clash between communism and capitalism fueled a decades-long Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, with many other countries becoming embroiled in the conflict.

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns initiated by Western European Christians in the late 11th century and finally ending in the 13th century. The stated purpose of the Crusades was to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims, but the Crusades were also driven by economic and political motivations. The Crusades gave Western Europeans access to the commercial, intellectual, and cultural opportunities offered by the Eastern Mediterranean and had lasting consequences for Christian and Muslim communities (and the relationships between them).

Trade in gold and silver was important since antiquity, as these metals were always valued, especially in Europe and Asia. But the gold and silver trade became especially important on a global scale in the 15th and 16th centuries, when the influx of these metals from the Americas led to commercial, political, and cultural revolutions that changed the relationship between Europe and the rest of the world.

Islam is a major world religion with its origins in the teachings of the seventh-century prophet Muḥammad. Within four hundred years of Muhammad’s death, the religion had spread from the Arabian Peninsula across Mesopotamia, Central Asia, and North Africa and even made inroads in Western Europe. Islam served to unify many disparate populations under a common faith, facilitating significant commercial and cultural advances.

Judaism is the earliest of the Abrahamic religions, with its origins in the southern Levant. Jewish scriptures influenced Christianity and Islam, which used commercial and cultural networks to spread across the world. Jewish communities have played a crucial role in the economic, political, and cultural development of both the Eastern and Western worlds. They have also frequently been the targets of persecution, from the Spanish Inquisition to the Eastern European pogroms to the Nazi Holocaust.

The Silk Road is the ancient network of trade routes that linked Asia, Europe, and North Africa, facilitating the exchange of both goods (such as silk) and ideas. Frankopan uses the Silk Road as a framework to approach the different trade routes that arose throughout history to connect East and West, illuminating how these networks shaped global history.

Though slavery has existed in various forms from the beginnings of human history, the trade in enslaved people became especially significant in the centuries following the demise of the western Roman Empire, as merchants from Northern Europe began enslaving populations (especially Slavs, Turks, and sub-Saharan Africans) and selling them across Europe and Asia. This trade became even more important (and notorious) after the colonization of the Americas, with massive numbers of African slaves sent across the Atlantic to work in grueling conditions on farms and especially on cotton plantations.