Author: Tilman Pradt
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811547084
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 127
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Book Description
This book offers the prequel to China's successful implementation of its New Silk Road, the so-called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The preconditions for the establishment of especially the land route between China and Western Europe have been set decades ago in Central Asia. In the political, security, and economic realms, China had to find arrangements with Russia as well as the Central Asian states. Border disputes had to be resolved, a security architecture and political cooperation was lacking. The key to BRI's success today lies in China's successful diplomacy of the 1990s and 2000s. This book tells the exciting story behind the largest geopolitical infrastructure project of our time.
Author: Valerie Hansen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190218428
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
The Silk Road is as iconic in world history as the Colossus of Rhodes or the Suez Canal. But what was it, exactly? It conjures up a hazy image of a caravan of camels laden with silk on a dusty desert track, reaching from China to Rome. The reality was different--and far more interesting--as revealed in this new history. In The Silk Road, Valerie Hansen describes the remarkable archeological finds that revolutionize our understanding of these trade routes. For centuries, key records remained hidden--sometimes deliberately buried by bureaucrats for safe keeping. But the sands of the Taklamakan Desert have revealed fascinating material, sometimes preserved by illiterate locals who recycled official documents to make insoles for shoes or garments for the dead. Hansen explores seven oases along the road, from Xi'an to Samarkand, where merchants, envoys, pilgrims, and travelers mixed in cosmopolitan communities, tolerant of religions from Buddhism to Zoroastrianism. There was no single, continuous road, but a chain of markets that traded between east and west. China and the Roman Empire had very little direct trade. China's main partners were the peoples of modern-day Iran, whose tombs in China reveal much about their Zoroastrian beliefs. Silk was not the most important good on the road; paper, invented in China before Julius Caesar was born, had a bigger impact in Europe, while metals, spices, and glass were just as important as silk. Perhaps most significant of all was the road's transmission of ideas, technologies, and artistic motifs. The Silk Road is a fascinating story of archeological discovery, cultural transmission, and the intricate chains across Central Asia and China.
Author: Carmen Amado Mendes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367585242
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Much of the writing on China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative focuses on China, the destinations of the road, or the countries through which it passes. This book considers international visions and limitations of the New Silk Road as a new paradigm, explores economic and trade aspects and analyses the implications for cooperation and compe
Author: Richard T Griffiths
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789492439055
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
In 2013 China's Belt and Road initiative reawakened public attention to the issue of trade and transport. At the same time it stoked fears about China's true intentions. It was easy for critics to conjure images of a tide of Chinese steel and cement spilling over the Eurasian continent. But what if China were not alone in funding new infrastructure and in facilitating trade, nor the first? Richard T. Griffiths explores the construction of new trading networks along the route of the ancient Silk Road between Europe and China. His book answers the question: who has been building the new Silk Road? This important book contributes to a more informed and better grounded distinction between what is ?real? and what is ?dream? in the Chinese BRI rhetoric, and provides us with an excellent platform to a deeper understanding of current and future Silk Road narratives.?Claes G. Alvstam, Professor Emeritus Economic Geography, University of Gothenburg.
Author: Kerry Brown
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781614728306
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Xinru Liu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199798803
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168
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Book Description
The Silk Road was the contemporary name for a complex of ancient trade routes linking East Asia with Central Asia, South Asia, and the Mediterranean world. This network of exchange emerged along the borders between agricultural China and the steppe nomads during the Han Dynasty (206BCE-220CE), in consequence of the inter-dependence and the conflicts of these two distinctive societies. In their quest for horses, fragrances, spices, gems, glassware, and other exotics from the lands to their west, the Han Empire extended its dominion over the oases around the Takla Makan Desert and sent silk all the way to the Mediterranean, either through the land routes leading to the caravan city of Palmyra in Syria desert, or by way of northwest India, the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea, landing at Alexandria. The Silk Road survived the turmoil of the demise of the Han and Roman Empires, reached its golden age during the early middle age, when the Byzantine Empire and the Tang Empire became centers of silk culture and established the models for high culture of the Eurasian world. The coming of Islam extended silk culture to an even larger area and paved the way for an expanded market for textiles and other commodities. By the 11th century, however, the Silk Road was in decline because of intense competition from the sea routes of the Indian Ocean. Using supply and demand as the framework for analyzing the formation and development of the Silk Road, the book examines the dynamics of the interactions of the nomadic pastoralists with sedentary agriculturalists, and the spread of new ideas, religions, and values into the world of commerce, thus illustrating the cultural forces underlying material transactions. This effort at tracing the interconnections of the diverse participants in the transcontinental Silk Road exchange will demonstrate that the world had been linked through economic and ideological forces long before the modern era.
Author: Susan Whitfield
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520232143
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
The Silk Road was the most traveled trade route for over 1,000 years until it was eclipsed by maritime trade. Whitfield presents composite stories of merchants, soldiers, artists, and princesses who traveled the route, and presents its history through their personal experiences.
Author: Qingxin Li
Publisher: 五洲传播出版社
ISBN: 9787508509327
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
Author: SARWAR A. KASHMERI
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788765118420
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author: James A. Millward
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199323852
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168
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Book Description
The phrase "silk road" evokes vivid scenes of merchants leading camel caravans across vast stretches to trade exotic goods in glittering Oriental bazaars, of pilgrims braving bandits and frozen mountain passes to spread their faith across Asia. Looking at the reality behind these images, this Very Short Introduction illuminates the historical background against which the silk road flourished, shedding light on the importance of old-world cultural exchange to Eurasian and world history. On the one hand, historian James A. Millward treats the silk road broadly, to stand in for the cross-cultural communication between peoples across the Eurasian continent since at least the Neolithic era. On the other, he highlights specific examples of goods and ideas exchanged between the Mediterranean, Persia, India, and China, along with the significance of these exchanges. While including silks, spices, and travelers' tales of colorful locales, the book explains the dynamics of Central Eurasian history that promoted Silk Road interactions--especially the role of nomad empires--highlighting the importance of the biological, technological, artistic, intellectual, and religious interchanges across the continent. Millward shows that these exchanges had a profound effect on the old world that was akin to, if not on the scale of, modern globalization. He also disputes the idea that the silk road declined after the collapse of the Mongol empire or the opening of direct sea routes from Europe to Asia, showing how silk road phenomena continued through the early modern and modern expansion of the Russian and Chinese states across Central Asia. Millward concludes that the idea of the silk road has remained powerful, not only as a popular name for boutiques and restaurants, but also in modern politics and diplomacy, such as U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's "Silk Road Initiative" for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
