The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

The Silk Roads opens with a brief preface in which Frankopan traces the development of his interest in history and globalization. He challenges the all-too-prevalent Western conception of Eastern peoples and places as “backwaters” and introduces the idea that “the bridge between East and West is the very crossroads of civilization” (xv). He discusses the origins of the term “Silk Road” (a coinage of the 19th-century German geologist Ferdinand von Richthofen) and explains his goal of putting forward a new, comprehensive history of the world that challenges the Eurocentric narrative.

In Chapter 1 (titled “The Creation of the Silk Road”), Frankopan looks to the early empires of Asia to trace the origins of the commercial networks that would become the Silk Road. According to Frankopan, it is the region of Mesopotamia or the “Fertile Crescent” that “provided the basis for civilisation itself” (3). Many powerful kingdoms and empires rose in this part of the world, the greatest of which were the Persians. Under the Achaemenid Dynasty, the Persian Empire extended eastward as far as the Himalayas. Through their investment in agriculture and irrigation, road building, and legal and political infrastructure, the Persians brought about increased contact between East and West, linking Asia Minor in the West with the kingdoms and cultures of south and East Asia.