Customer Reviews

The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War And Faith

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"The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War And Faith" is the best book of its kind I've ever seen. It looks like a coffee-table book, with a lot of fascinating pictures of Silk Road manuscripts, artifacts, archaeological sites, and landscapes, but unlike most coffee table books the text is meaty and up-to-date. It's centered on early-Twentieth Century explorations (especially by Aurel Stein) in Uzbekistan, the Turkish republics, and the Chinese province of Xinjiang, with excellent brief chapters on methodological questions, the Stein expedition, sites at Samarkand, Khotan, Miran, Kroriana, Dunhang, and Gaochang, and a number of other topics of great interest. (However, the previous reviewer is probably right that it isn't an especially good book for someone relatively new to the subject.)

Especially interesting to me were the photos of manuscripts (mostly Buddhist, Manichaean, or Zoroastrian) in fifteen or so languages and twelve or thirteen different scripts: Sogdian, Uighur, Mongol, Manichaean, Pahlavi, Tibetan, Chinese, Turkish Runic, Brahmi, Kharosthi, Judeo-Persian, early modern Persian, and possibly Greek (on Kushan coins). But there's something for everyone: graphic art, sculpture, architecture, household items, and knicknacks.

This book belongs in the library of everyone interested in the history of the Silk Road. (If they can afford it, which I can't yet.)

A good history of sorts but disjointed. Several place names are not on the map. This should be checked before publication of this type book. A glossary fo names and who they are is missing. But still good info in this book. My fourth read on this subject.