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libron26 's review for:
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
by Peter Frankopan
This was a very engaging book on the history of "middle of the world" from ancient times to the present. It s a history of everywhere from the Middle East through central Asia to the borders to China. The central argument of the book is that far from being just a strange exotic land that connects East and West, it has been and will become again a central part of world history. Names like Samarkand, the Sogdia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan abound. It was a critical crossroads of faith that played a key part in both the expansion of Christianity and later Islam. The ancient fur trade and slave trade by the Viking Rus occurred along the Silk Road. It was were the western kingdoms called their crusaders to invade in the dawn of the second millennium. The Mongols and the Black Death and Russia's wheat all came from there. Lastly, rich in oil, natural gas, and rare earth elements the Silk Road has a continuing relevance to the politics of the current day. One just has to look at the recent and continuing US wars to see that.