Valerie Hansen's Reading List

"The Silk Road traversed the territory around the Taklamakan Desert in Northwest China and included the routes that connected China with Iran . My book focuses on seven Silk Road sites and proceeds in chronological order. It starts in Northwest China, about the second century AD, and continues up through the age of Marco Polo. Many people erroneously think that the Silk Road connected China with Rome. There is very little evidence of direct contact between the Han dynasty or its successors and Rome. But there’s lots of evidence of contact between China and Iran. “Paper, which was invented in China about the second century BC, was coming into use during the time of the Silk Road.” At the end of each chapter, I include a collection of selected primary sources for each Silk Road site, some very rare, which give readers the chance to read the words of, for instance, Chinese pilgrims and Marco Polo. Absolutely true. Paper, which was invented in China about the second century BC, was coming into use during the time of the Silk Road. By the third century AD, people were writing letters on paper. One of the reasons we know that is that this whole region was very dry, so the paper is preserved and so is cloth, as are some dead bodies and skin and hair. There’s also a very high level of preservation of food. We have petrified dumplings that have survived since the year 600. There’s a picture of that in the book. A lot, but not much silk. When silk was found along this route, it was rarely decorative cloths but often simple white silk, which was used as money because of a shortage of coins. What was moving along the route? Spices, aromatics, fragrances, precious metals, like gold and silver, and ammonium chloride, which was used to soften leather and also to reduce the melting temperature of metals. So, one of the reasons the Silk Road is a misnomer is that silk was not the main good moving along. Another reason it’s a misnomer is that nobody used that word at that time. It’s a term that was coined at the end of the 19th century."

"This is probably the most fun book. It’s a great read about different late 19th-century explorers from Central Asia who excavated the Silk Road sites that people still travel to today, as well as the documents and artifacts that made their way into European museums and collections. Each chapter is about explorers from a different country. It’s written in a very lively fashion. Some Europeans just documented with sketches or if they could, they took photographs, and left everything they excavated onsite. But most removed things. They hacked away at paintings and damaged them. The book goes into great and fascinating detail about the mechanics of travel and shipping these treasures back to Europe."

"This is a humongous book filled with beautiful photographs. Some are large enough to spread over two pages, showing famous Silk Road sites and works of art. It’s really a visual treasure. Among all these books, this is the coffee table book. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . It also has the most expansive definition of the Silk Road. It includes Africa, Europe and Asia. There are fabulous maps throughout the book. The book is set up so that you can look at the maps, figure out what part of the world you’re interested in, and then read about that region in the world. The visual record of the Silk Road is so rich. Some of the most beautiful things that travelled along it were made in China, out of gold and silver, with Central Asian motifs. Some beautiful Sogdian tombs, combining Iranian and Chinese art, are featured. There are also beautiful colour photos of the scenery—of mountains and oases. My Silk Road book ends around the year 1000. In the book, I write about an oasis called Khotan, in the northwest corner of China, that fell to Islamic armies just after the year 1000. The region, which had been Buddhist up until then, was conquered by Muslim rulers. I knew that the Vikings touched down in Canada around the year 1000. And that the Chinese signed a treaty with Northern people called the Liao around 1000 which set up conditions for change. I started wondering if these momentous changes were connected in any way. So, I embarked on a five year investigation into that question. The answer is yes. “The visual record of the Silk Road is so rich” Around the year 1000, people around the globe started to realize for the first time that they could leave home, travel to other places, find out about their neighbors and adopt new approaches. A wave of Islam came to Northwest China as part of that movement. People embarked on ocean travel, who hadn’t strayed far previously. The Vikings cross from Greenland to what is today Canada. New routes linked the continents together. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter The Silk Road was an early harbinger which showed the promise of exchange with neighbors in the centuries before 1000. In the year 1000, we start to see trade across great distances, despite the fact that nobody had sophisticated transportation technology. Boat building was improved, but those great distances were traversed on land, wind, and animal power alone. The book is about people building new pathways in the year 1000, discovering that they share the globe with other cultures, that their homes are just one part of a much larger picture."