The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

The Silk Roads is a nonfiction historical book originally published in 2015 by Peter Frankopan, a professor of global history at Oxford University. The book traces the history of the trade routes that connected Asia, Europe, and Africa from their origins in antiquity to the present day. Frankopan’s book sets out to challenge many traditional Eurocentric narratives of world history by highlighting how much of “Western” history emerged from contact with the ideas, cultures, and religions of the East. The book has generally been well received, though some critics and scholars have questioned the degree to which Frankopan succeeds in his ambitious goal of presenting a comprehensive alternative history of the world to counter longstanding Eurocentric views.

This study guide refers to the 2015 edition from Bloomsbury.

Content Warning: This book challenges Eurocentric narratives of world history in favor of a new world history centered on the East and especially Persia, leading to potential biases.

Summary

After a brief preface in which he notes some of the problems with many of the longstanding Eurocentric narratives of world history and globalization, Frankopan sets out, in Chapter 1, to describe the origins of the commercial networks that came to be known as the “Silk Road.” Beginning with the societies and cultures that emerged in Mesopotamia and the “Fertile Crescent” over 4,000 years ago, Frankopan discusses the significance of the commercial networks and trade routes that connected the West with the East. Frankopan gives special priority to Persia (Iran), a region that rose to great importance because of its strategic location between Eastern and Western kingdoms, empires, and peoples. The emergent commercial networks of antiquity facilitated cultural, economic, and technological exchanges and contributed to the rise of important powers such as the Achaemenid Empire in Persia, the Greco-Macedonian and Roman Empires in the Mediterranean, and the Han Empire in China. It was in China that silk was first manufactured and exported, giving rise to the first “silk roads.”

In Chapter 2, Frankopan turns to the ideas and faiths that traveled across the commercial networks linking Europe, the Mediterranean, and Asia. Through these networks, religions such as Greek polytheism, Persian Zoroastrianism, and Indic faiths such as Hinduism and Buddhism came into contact and influenced one another. Christianity in particular, though now commonly associated with the West, arose in Asia. From humble beginnings as a small and persecuted cult, the Christians soon rose to become a dominant force in the Mediterranean. In Chapter 3, Frankopan stresses how the flow of Christian ideology along the commercial networks contributed to the rise of Christianity in both the East and the West.

Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted to the beginnings of Islam, a religion that took form in the 610s from the teachings of the prophet Muḥammad. Taking advantage of political, military, and economic instability brought about by the constant power struggles between Rome and Persia, Muḥammad and his followers were quickly successful in becoming a power in the East. By the 630s, Persia was “swallowed up by Muḥammad’s followers” (76), and support from Christians and especially Jews allowed the new faith to press its advantage further and further. At least in the early years of Islamic power, as Muḥammad and his immediate successors cemented their power in the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, religious tolerance was the norm. It was only later, as Muslim leaders sought to standardize Muḥammad’s message after his death, that Islam started to become hostile to rival factions and faiths. By the middle of the eighth century, Muslim armies had reached as far as Europe in the West and Central Asia in the East, uniting the commercially important regions of Asia and facilitating the movement of trade, ideas, and wealth while destabilizing many established world powers, including Rome and China.

The prosperity that emerged in the wake of the Muslim conquests created an interest in the goods of the Eastern steppes, especially furs. The new “fur road,” the subject of Chapter 6, led nomadic tribal groups such as the Khazars to become very powerful and wealthy, while also encouraging groups such as the Scandinavian Vikings to go East in search of their fortune. The trade in enslaved people, explored in Chapter 7, boosted the economy of Northern Europe and shifted the balance of power in Europe and Asia. The Rus’, originally Vikings from Scandinavia, grew rich by enslaving populations and established themselves in what later became Russia. Meanwhile, instability in the Muslim world led to the rise of Turkic tribes such as the Seljuks. These in turn put pressure on the Byzantine Empire and Constantinople, whose appeal to the Pope in 1095 set the First Crusade in motion.

Chapter 8 covers the initial successes of the First Crusade. In capturing Jerusalem, the crusade gave Western Europe access to new commercial opportunities in the Eastern Mediterranean. Taking advantage of these opportunities, the Italian city-states of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice acquired vast wealth and power, escalating tensions with Constantinople in the process. In 1187, however, Jerusalem was retaken by Saladin, and subsequent attempts to retake the city were unsuccessful. The Fourth Crusade did not even come close to Jerusalem, instead culminating in the sack of Constantinople in 1204.

The rise of the Mongols and their expansion through Asia further disrupted the Christian and Muslim worlds, as Chapter 9 shows. Under Genghis Khan and his successors, the Mongols expanded rapidly. Though they never achieved a lasting foothold in Europe, they did come to control much of Asia, where they dramatically shifted the balance of power. The Mamlūks, meanwhile, proved remarkably successful in Egypt, and by the end of the 13th century had taken control of Palestine and Syria, driving back the Mongols from that region but also ending the Christian presence in the Holy Land once and for all.

In Chapter 10, Frankopan discusses the devastation created by the Black Death, which spread through Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe in the middle of the 14th century. The recovery that followed in the wake of the plague transformed the global balance of power, with Mongol power contracting as the Ottomans rose to power in the Bosporus and the Ming Dynasty took control in China. This growth contributed to a “global financial crisis” (192) in Europe and Asia in the 15th century. By the end of the 15th century, however, the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama were poised to turn Europe into “the centre of the world” (196).

As Chapter 11 shows, Columbus’s discovery of the Americas—anticipated by increased exploration of the Atlantic by the Portuguese and Spanish—resulted in the flow of huge quantities of pearls, silver, and, most importantly, gold to Europe (especially Spain). This was accompanied by a booming African slave trade that made the Portuguese in particular very wealthy. This new wealth sparked a period of cultural transformation in Europe, which for the first time became “the heart of the world” (213). Da Gama’s discovery of an alternative sea route to India via the southern tip of Africa, discussed in Chapter 12, also served to stimulate the European economy. More and more wealth—especially in the form of gold and silver bullion—flowed from the Americas to Europe and Asia, encouraging competition as well as cooperation between key players such as Spain, Portugal, the Ottomans, the Safavids, the Mughal Empire, and China.

In Northern Europe, the subject of Chapter 13, England and the Dutch found new ways to compete with Spain and Portugal, developing their maritime power and establishing trade routes of their own. European militarism contributed to their successes during this period but also led to increased infighting within the continent. In the 18th century, the kingdom of Britain had grown increasingly imperialistic, incorporating their holdings in the East—especially India—into their empire (Chapter 14).

Chapter 15 turns to the growth of Russia in the 19th century, as they established themselves as a major power in Central Asia and the Caucasus, becoming a serious rival to British interests. Mounting tensions over control of the East ultimately led to the First World War, as illustrated in Chapter 16.

Chapter 17 explores the role played by Eastern oil reserves (especially in Persia) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Access to oil became one of the major issues of international policy in countries such as Britain, leading to growing competition with other European powers (such as Russia and France). Competition for control over the oil reserves of the East ultimately became a contributing cause of the First World War.

Chapter 18 tracks the worsening Western exploitation of oil-rich Eastern countries in the first decades of the 20th century. This exploitation fed a growing hatred of the West in countries such as Persia (later Iran) and ultimately led to a renegotiation of the relationship between East and West in the 1920s and 1930s.

Chapters 19 and 20 explore how the food shortage in Germany (and the rest of Europe) contributed to the Second World War, with Hitler aiming to secure limitless wheat and resources by expanding eastward into the Soviet Union and the Middle East. Despite initial successes, however, the German food shortage only continued to worsen in the 1940s. Faced with the inevitable loss of life that would result from starvation, the Nazis began to systematically murder Russians and Jews, populations they had long been demonizing.

As European power declined after the Second World War, the global influence of the United States and the Soviet Union grew. This conflict was fed by an ideological opposition between Soviet communism and American and European capitalism. As both sides tried to assert global dominance in the Cold War, they fought for control over Asian nations such as Iran (Chapter 21). The continued Western interference in Middle Eastern affairs led to mounting turmoil in the region and animosity toward the West, described in detail in Chapter 22.

In Chapter 23, Frankopan examines the rise of anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East in the 1970s. As oil revenues continued pouring into the OPEC countries and their neighbors, Middle Eastern powers such as Iran, Iraq, and Israel accumulated significant weapons technology and even nuclear arsenals. Discontent and political turmoil continued to mount, with Iran ousting the Shah under the encouragement of the radical Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.

Chapter 24 discusses the breakdown of American influence in the Middle East in the wake of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and its gradual resurgence in the 1980s, as the US backed Afghanistan against the Soviet Union while playing Iraq and Iran against each other. Chapter 25 looks to more recent history, beginning with Operation Desert Storm and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The United States rose to become the dominant world power, but their failure to curb terrorist activities in the Middle East led to several tragic attacks, including the attacks of September 11, 2001. The subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq had little success, only causing financial and reputational damage to the United States.

In his conclusion, Frankopan suggests that “New Silk Roads” (492) are emerging in the East, with countries such as Russia, Iran, and China taking advantage of their natural resources to build commercial networks on a scale that puts growing pressure on the West.