The Silk Road, a series of ancient trade routes stretching across Central Asia to Europe, evokes exotic images of camel trains laden with bales of fine Chinese silk, spices, and perfume, of desert oases surrounded by snow-capped mountains, of bustling markets thronging with travellers buying and selling grapes, coriander, Baltic amber, and Mediterranean coral. Along this route, silks were sent from China to ancient Rome; princesses were dispatched in marriage alliances across the deserts; bandits and thieves launched attacks throughout history.
Covering more than 5,000 years, this book, lavishly illustrated with photographs, manuscripts, and paintings from the collections of the British Library and other museums worldwide, presents an overall picture of the history and cultures of the Silk Road. It also contains many previously unpublished photographs by the great explorers Stein, Hedin, and Mannerheim.
More than just a trade route, the Silk Road witnessed the movement of cultural influences. Frances Wood traces the story of the civilizations and ideas that flourished and moved along its vast geographical expanse. Indian Buddhism was carried into China on the Silk Road, initiating a long history of pilgrimages along the lonely desert routes; Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity, and Islam also made their way eastwards along its route.
The nineteenth century saw a new interest in Central Asia and the Silk Road, as Russia and Britain vied for power on the frontiers of Afghanistan. A new breed of explorer, part archaeologist, part cartographer, part spy, was seen on the Silk Road, while some of the ancient cities, long buried in sand-blown dunes, began to give up their secrets. This book brings the history of the Silk Road alive--from its beginnings to the present day, revealing a rich history still in the making.

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The "Silk Route" of course had silk as a predominant item of trade (you can expect interesting vignettes such as Chinese children tending pet silkworms on mulberry leaves) but there were countless other items that joined the caravans -- rhubarb, musk, diamonds, jade etc -- as did horses, elephants, lions and ostriches. Yet, apart from its economic clout in that period, this legendary network of roads across Central Asia (as opposed to one highway that most people believe Silk Road was) served as a bustling conduit for culture, languages, customs and faiths across the nations. It was veritably an eBay of the olden times!

In her sobering language littered with intriguing trivia, Ms Wood takes us through centuries of interest in this road. It is refreshing to see her get brazenly outspoken about imperialistic motives towards the latter part of the 19th century that ruined the legendary route, when a lot of European merchants focused on pilfering away everything from cave Buddhas to gold.

At nearly 300 pages, it is not a trivial tome, but I found it both accessible and entertaining. Oh, and it comes with a bunch of illustrations and pictures. If such a vivid historical production interests you, I highly recommend this informative book.

43 of 45 found the following review helpful:

Not Necessarily the Best First Book on the TopicAug 28, 2008
By Dennis P. Waters
I recently became interested in this topic and based on the reviews here ordered this book as a first step. I do not know the literature well but I would hope that there exists a better introduction for the novice.

To be sure, this is a fine book in many ways. It is a beautiful package and it showcases the author's scholarship with intensive use of primary sources. And I did learn a lot. I was especially intrigued by the "east-looking-west" world view, resulting no doubt from the author's Sinophilia.

To my mind, there are two big gaps. The first is the absence of the historian's "big picture." There is much detail but not much discussion to tie it all together.

The second - and the more important - is that among all of the illustrations there are very few maps. In fact there are only two, at the very front and the very back, and they don't do much to relate the historical Silk Road to modern political boundaries and ethnic distributions. Time and again I wished there were maps to show the travels and conquests of various groups and individuals. For a history with a strong geographical component, this is a fatal flaw.

Don't get me wrong. I am happy that I read the book. But I do wish I had started elsewhere, though I'm not sure where that would be.



25 of 26 found the following review helpful:

VERY INFORMATIVE, BEAUTIFUL READ. I LEARNED MUCH FROM THIS ONE!Jun 04, 2008
By D. Blankenship
The Silk Road, by Frances Wood is a wonderfully detailed account of the history of what is probably the most famous "road" in history. Of course we soon learn that this "road" is actually a series of roads running here and there through many countries and many cultures. I must admit that when I first received this book, I had a sinking feeling. It appeared to be just another coffee table book. It certainly looked and felt like one. How wrong I was. Just goes to show you indeed cannot judge a book by its cover nor by its shape. I cannot remember reading a book, in particular on this subject, which was so filled with wonderful facts and obscure bits of knowledge. What was even nicer was the fact that it is so well written and so well researched. Also, unlike many of the books on this subject, it is not Eurocentric by any means. Most of the story of this famous trade route took place in the far and Middle East and this is where the author places the majority of emphasis.

While the author certainly touches on the types of goods which were carried along this route, and does address the economic aspect of trade in this part of the world over the past several thousand years, the majority of this work focuses on the various civilization, many of them completely lost, and on the travels of quite a number of important, but seldom heard of travelers and traders. This is NOT a rehash of all the old tales of Marco Polo, who, thank goodness, was not mentioned all that much. The study of Marco is interesting and enjoyable, but to learn the truth of these days and times, his writings are probably not the most accurate. Besides, if you want to learn of Marco and his family, there are certainly enough other books out there that more than cover the subject.

Now before I continue, the reader should take note. As the author fully admits, this is a very complicated work, made even more so by the spelling of place names and the various rise and fall of numerous civilizations. I must admit that at many times I was completely clueless as to where, who and when the author was referring to. This is not the author's fault, it is mine. I had no idea just how ignorant I was of the geography of the area concerned, and how ignorant of the history of that area. If you do not know what and where Zhou, Xiongnu, Yarkland, Loulan, Zhibin, Parthis, Chang'an, Qin, Gaozong, Dunhuang, Xuanzang, and several hundred other locations are, then you will be in big trouble like I was. Many of these place names are further complicated because of name changes over hundreds of years and by numerous different spellings of the same place. There is obviously a large gap in my education. I had the same problem with names of various tribes and the names of people. Even maps are not that much help, as many of the places mentioned in the author's narrative simply no longer exist. Actually and surprisingly, this did not distract from the overall work all that much. And, when you think about it, what better way of learning these previously unknown facts, than the study of a work such as this? The reader should not be put off by this...consider it a learning challenge and experience!

The author is quite outspoken and quite critical during the last part of the book when addressing "The Great Game" and the role the major European powers had in raping, exploiting and destroying traces of these wonderful and lost civilizations. She is also quite harsh in her assessment as to the role of religion is destroying irreplaceable artifacts in the name of one God or another, even addressing the recent atrocities carried out by the Taliban in Afghanistan against religions shrines and the almost complete destruction of museums, all in the name of religion. While I dearly love having access to some of these pieces of history in our own museums, I must admit that we were as guilty as the next is literally stealing from these countries. On the other hand, one wonders if some of these priceless artifacts would still exist in this world had they not been removed from their original source. Food for thought here!

This is a very readable, scholarly work and the many, many pictures, photographs and reproductions make it an absolute pleasure to the eye. This is one of those books that if you read it for the art work alone, you will enjoy and will learn. If you choose to read only one book covering this fascinating subject, then this is the one you should probably choose.


16 of 18 found the following review helpful:

A Magnificent PanoramaNov 12, 2006
By C. Dempster "Live Freeze & Die"
Fraces Wood's SILK ROAD is a highly readable if somewhat compact survey of the Silk Road which manages to encompass history (interesting discussion of Marco Polo among other things), geography, and culture. This is an excellent introduction to an area of the world, Central Asia and the Roof Of The World, which is likely to become increasingly important as well as accessible. I would suggest reading this book before starting to read very much about The Great Game (Peter Hopkirk's Central Asia books, Meyer's TOURNAMENT OF SHADOWS), or indeed about Central Asia in general. Documentation appears excellent as one would expect of a scholar of Wood's background and credentials. The writing style is exemplary; this is am far more readable treatiste on the subject than the English ranslation of Luce Boulnois' SILK ROAD (which seems to have lacked vigourous or at least effective editing.)

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