"Our world was made on and by the Silk Roads. For millennia it was here that East and West encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas and cultures, the birth of the world's great religions, the appetites for foreign goods that drove economies and the growth of nations. From the first cities in Mesopotamia to the growth of Greece and Rome to the depredations by the Mongols and the Black Death to the Great Game and the fall of Communism, the fate of the West has always been inextricably linked to the East. The Silk Roads vividly captures the importance of the networks that crisscrossed the spine of Asia and linked the Atlantic with the Pacific, the Mediterranean with India, America with the Persian Gulf.…
"Peter Frankopan is an omnivore. He’s seemingly interested in everything from Ireland to the East Indies and indulged his curiosity in this excellent volume. His goal was to shake up Western readers and get them to appreciate the many cultural centers along the way, with Central Asia figuring prominently in his account of the many culturally fertile lands along the route. He is a first-class writer. Frankopan did much to broaden our perspective on the Middle East, the Balkans, as well as Central Asia. Could he have gone deeper into the Central Asian story? Of course. There is no way that a single book—let alone a very readable book, which Peter Frankopan’s definitely is—could cover all of the Eurasian landmass in equal detail. For example, I wish that he had paid more attention to India and its complexities. Why? Because one of the greatest intellectual challenges before the world right now is to come to grips with the emerging India and its astonishingly rich past, its heritage. But The Silk Roads is a wonderful place to start, for it opens one’s eyes, if they’re not already open."
