fabrice44 's review for:

2.0

Although the beginning showed an interesting view of the commercial exchange in the silk road and its impact on the rise and fall of empires, I found the handling of modern area lacking of depth, out of topic and even a bit biased in favor of US and Israeli. I wasn't reading this book for that.

The author is trying to make oil trade and US middle east involvement fit in the Silk Roads. I don't buy it. Those road are trade route between East and West, China and Mediterranean sea. Connection between those two fields seems tiny to me except that middle east was a Silk Road trading post.

Therefore, I couldn't finish it and gave it this low grade.

I would recommend to read this book until the chapter 12 and will have give it a 4 stars review if it has stopped there and use the remaining pages to talk more about the steppes tribes, Chinese traders, treasure ships and Arab caravans.