A Short History of the Silk Road

ISBN-13: 9781909961371 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 220 str.

Jonathan Clements

Opis

The Silk Road is not a place, but a journey, a route from the edges of the Mediterranean to the central plains of China, through high mountains and inhospitable deserts. For thousands of years its history has been a traveler's history, of brief encounters in desert towns, snowbound passes and nameless forts. It was the conduit that first brought Buddhism, Christianity and Islam into China, and the site of much of the "Great Game" between 19th-century empires. Today, its central section encompasses several former Soviet republics, and the Chinese Autonomous Region of Xinjiang. The ancient trade route controversially crosses the sites of several forgotten kingdoms, buried in sand and only now revealing their secrets.
A History of the Silk Road not only offers the reader a chronological outline of the region's development, but also provides an invaluable introduction to its languages, literature, and arts. It takes a comprehensive and illuminating look at the rich history of this dynamic and little known region, and provides an easy-to-use reference source. Jonathan Clements pays particular attention to the fascinating historical sites which feature on any visitor's itinerary and also gives special emphasis to the writings and reactions of travelers through the centuries.

O autorze

Clements, Jonathan
Dr Jonathan Clements is the author of many books on East Asian history, including biographies of emperors and empresses, statesmen and warriors, foreign visitors and outcast rebels. His works have been translated into over a dozen languages, including French, Spanish, Korean and Dutch. His biographies of the First Emperor and Empress Wu have both been translated into Chinese. He has been a consultant and talking head on many TV programmes including New Secrets of the Terracotta Warriors (Channel 4), Koxinga: Sailing into History (National Geographic), China's Jade Empire (Channel 4), and Ancient Black Ops: The 47 Ronin (UK Yesterday). In 2016, he became the presenter of Route Awakening (National Geographic), a series investigating the origins of several key Chinese cultural icons.