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The Silk Road
A New History
Valerie Hansen
336 pages
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34 b/w & 16 color illus.
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234x156mm
978-0-19-515931-8
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Hardback
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11 October 2012
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We are awaiting more stock of this item from another OUP branch. Orders for out-of-stock items are supplied and charged as soon as the item becomes available.
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- Author is respected expert on the early Silk Roads.
- Based on new sources discovered in Central Asia.
- Topic is a perennial favorite for museum exhibits.
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 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 archaeological finds that revolutionize our understanding of these trade routes. For millennia, key records remained hidden—often 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 northwest China to Samarkand, where merchants, envoys, pilgrims, and travelers mixed in cosmopolitan communities, tolerant of religions from Buddhism to Zoroastrianism. Hansen notes that 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. Hansen writes that 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 Southeast Asia.Readership: Chinese and Central Asian history, world history, archaeology
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Valerie Hansen, Professor of History, Yale University Valerie Hansen is Professor of History at Yale University. Her books include The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600, Negotiating Daily Life in Traditional China: How Ordinary People Used Contracts, 600-1400, and Changing Gods in Medieval China, 1127-1276, and co-author of Voyages in World History.
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"[a] ground-breaking new history." - The Scotsman
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Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. At the Crossroads of Central Asia: The Kingdom of Kroraina
2. Gateway to the Languages of the Silk Road: Kucha and the Kizil Caves
3. Midway Between China and Iran: Turfan
4. Homeland of the Sogdians, the Silk Road Traders: Samarkand and Sogdiana
5. The Cosmopolitan Terminus of the Silk Road: Historic Chang'an, Modern-day Xi'an
6. The Time Capsule of Silk Road History: The Dunhuang Caves
7. Entryway into Xinjiang for Buddhism and Islam: Khotan
Conclusion: The History of the Overland Routes through Central Asia
Notes
Index
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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