In your history lessons, you'd probably have learned about the Silk Roads and why they were so important. Here is the summary: The Silk Roads are the most famous long-distance trade route in the ancient world. They began in 130BC when the Han Empire (China) began selling silk to the Parthian Empire (Iran) in return for horses. The Parthians in turn began trading this silk with the Roman Empire (Italy) for wine. Soon, a sophisticated network of routes spread goods, ideas and religions around the civilized world, changing it forever.
Goods such as the magnetic compass, silk, gunpowder and ceramics were traded from Chinese cities to the west. In return the West provided products like wine, glass, olive oil and silver. All along the trade routes, gold was a common form of money for trading. A negative impact was the spread of diseases such as the bubonic plague that spread across Central Asia into China and resulted in the Black Death in Europe.
The Silk Roads ended in AD 1453, when the Ottoman Empire of Turkey conquered Constantinople, drove out its Roman occupiers, and stopped trading with the West. The closure of the Silk Roads forced European explorers to find new sea routes to replace over-land trade. This new "Age of Discovery" saw Columbus head West to America (1492) and Vasco de Gama head East to the Spice Islands (1497) - starting a whole new story of European Empire-building.
I bought Peter Frankopan's "The Silk Roads", for a couple of dollars from the dear old ladies at Vinnies. At over 600 pages, I'll be dipping in and out of it for several weeks, but I'm already on the look-out for "The New Silk Roads" which takes a fresh look at the network of relationships being formed along the length and breadth of the Silk Roads today.
You may not be willing to invest the same amount of time in reading which is why I added these two clips of Deutsche Welle's excellent documentary which, although unrelated to the book, deals with the same subject. If nothing else, you may learn some Bahasa Indonesia by following the subtitles at the bottom. Selamat menonton!
