Tracking Trade-inspired Globalization Over More Than a Millennium
S. Frederick Starr
This absorbing but curiously misnamed book is more than the story of the “Silk Roads” and less than a “History of the World.” Peter Frankopan, an Oxford specialist on Byzantium, presents some two dozen “roads” or episodes in the history of Europe and Asia over two millennia, of which the Silk Road phase is only one. And while he claims to write a history of the world, whole civilizations and continents, including Africa and the Americas, enter his story only when they come under the influence of Europeans. Japan barely rates a mention. His real focus is the Eurasian landmass, and his goal is to convince readers that the stories of Asia and Europe are really one, that they interacted constantly in the past and that they do so even more today.
Related Publications
-
Turkey’s Problem Isn’t Sweden. It’s the United States.
The issue isn’t what Sweden says or does but what the United States does or fails to do on the ground in Syria that matters for Turkey’s national security interests. […]
-
TURKISH QUAGMIRE: WHY TURKEY BLOCKS SWEDEN’S NATO ACCESSION
Turkey was bound to have issues with Sweden and its pro-Kurdish stance, and singled out Sweden because of its longstanding commitment to Kurdish aspirations. However, it is the continued US […]
-
Russian Federation and China: Cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative
Abstract: This Issue Brief looks at six Sino-Russian projects that have been placed under the rubric of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Since, at the political level, China is […]