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Empires of ancient Eurasia : the first Silk Roads era, 100 BCE-250 CE / Craig Benjamin

Author
Benjamin, Craig
Published
Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Copyright Date
©2018
Physical Description
xi, 304 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

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Contents
Introduction -- Pastoral nomads and the empires of the Steppe -- Early China: prelude to the Silk Roads -- Zhang Qian and Han expansion into Central Asia -- The early Han Dynasty and the eastern Silk Roads -- The Roman Empire and the western Silk Roads -- The Parthian Empire and the Silk Roads -- The Kushan Empire: at the crossroads of ancient Eurasia -- Maritime routes of the first Silk Roads Era -- Collapse of empires and the decline of the first Silk Roads Era -- Conclusion.
Summary
The Silk Roads are the symbol of the interconnectedness of ancient Eurasian civilizations. Using challenging land and maritime routes, merchants and adventurers, diplomats and missionaries, sailors and soldiers, and camels, horses and ships, carried their commodities, ideas, languages and pathogens enormous distances across Eurasia. The result was an underlying unity that traveled the length of the routes, and which is preserved to this day, expressed in common technologies, artistic styles, cultures and religions, and even disease and immunity patterns. In words and images, Craig Benjamin explores the processes that allowed for the comingling of so many goods, ideas, and diseases around a geographical hub deep in central Eurasia. He argues that the first Silk Roads era was the catalyst for an extraordinary increase in the complexity of human relationships and collective learning, a complexity that helped drive our species inexorably along a path towards modernity.
Subject(s)
ISBN
9781107114968 (Hardback)
1107114969 (Hardback)
9781107535435 (Paperback)
1107535433 (Paperback)
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 284-297) and index.
View MARC record | catkey: 23431623