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Life along the Silk Road
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 950
EAN: 9780520232143
ISBN: 0520232143
Label: University of California Press
Manufacturer: University of California Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 253
Publication Date: August 06, 2001
Publisher: University of California Press
Studio: University of California Press
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Editorial Review:
With a nod to the storytelling traditions of the ancient central Asian bazaars that it describes, Life Along the Silk Road is a wily half-breed of a history book. Mixing narrative and historic minutiae, each chapter introduces an inhabitant of the Silk Road at the end of the 10th century. Following the lives and stories of the Merchant, the Soldier, the Monk, the Courtesan, and others, Susan Whitfield brings the dramatic history of pre-Islamic central Asia down to a human scale, fleshing out the battles of conquest and trade with the details of everyday life.
Whitfield is the director of the British Library-sponsored Dunhuang Project, which makes a remarkable collection of ancient Silk Road manuscripts, including those acquired by legendary explorer Sir Aurel Stein, available on the Internet. Her knowledge of this treasure trove of primary material shows throughout the book. What is the choicest cut of meat from a camel? The hump. The Chinese recipe for curing possession by demons? It involves a number of ingredients, including a broiled centipede, with all the legs removed. What ancient Silk Road town was famous for its dancing girls? Read and see. --Ken Peavler
In the first 1,000 years after Christ, merchants, missionaries, monks, mendicants, and military men traveled on the vast network of Central Asian tracks that became known as the Silk Road. Linking Europe, India, and the Far East, the route passed through many countries and many settlements, from the splendid city of Samarkand to tiny desert hamlets. Susan Whitfield creates a rich and varied portrait of life along the greatest trade route in history in a vivid, lively, and learned account that spans the eighth through the tenth centuries. Recounting the lives of ten individuals who lived at different times during this period, Whitfield draws on contemporary sources and uses firsthand accounts whenever possible to reconstruct the history of the route through the personal experiences of these characters.
Life along the Silk Road brings alive the now ruined and sand-covered desert towns and their inhabitants. Readers encounter an Ulghur nomad from the Gobi Desert accompanying a herd of steppe ponies for sale to the Chinese state; Ah-long, widow of a prosperous merchant, now reduced to poverty and forced to resort to law and charity to survive; and the Chinese princess sent as part of a diplomatic deal to marry a Turkish kaghan. In the process we learn about women's lives, modes of communication, weapons, types of cosmetics, methods of treating altitude sickness in the Tibetan army, and ways that merchants cheated their customers. Throughout the narrative, Whitfield conveys a strong sense of what life was like for ordinary men and women on the Silk Road--everyone from itinerant Buddhist monks, to Zoroastrians and Nestorian Christians seeking converts among the desert settlers, to storytellers, musicians, courtesans, diviners, peddlers, and miracle-workers who offered their wares in the marketplaces and at temple fairs. A work of great scholarship, Life along the Silk Road is at the same time extremely accessible and entertaining.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Interesting facts, but badly writted
This book has an interesting story being told but the way it is told is extremely boring, monotonous and meticulous.
Rating:  - The Silk Road by Susan Whitfield
This book is presented with different tales told by different people living along the Silk Road between 750 and 1000. The people e.g. A courtesan, merchant, monk, princess, soldier all have a different perspective. There is much detail to be found in the writing and I found that I needed to read it more than once and tales could be read on there own without much trouble.
Rating: - Decamerone of the Silk Road
This work of historical fiction by the director of the International Dunhuang Project at the British Library, fills a big hole in the narrative on the Middle and Late Tang period (700-900) and on the Silk Road itself. Describing the history of a Road is difficult and the best literary expedient is probably that adopted by the Author: a compendium of tales, tales of travellers, merchants, missionaries, monks, military men, princesses (sent as wives). From Samarkanda to Chang'an ten characters narrate ... Read More
Rating: - Very interesting
This book was very interesting. It really brought the Silk Road to life. I loved reading about various aspects of Silk Road life through different people's perspectives. I especially liked the inclusion of several women's perspectives.
Rating:  - It seems as though the book got most interesting 2/3 of the way through
This book was not the most light reading historical fiction. (For a good, proper example, I'd recommend trying "Memoirs of a Geisha." That was an excellent book.) There is a way to make historical fiction more interesting, but for most of the book this author did not find it.
The Silk Road is something that is known about through popular mythology, but about which few historical details are given.
It was interesting to know that that particular area was very multicultural.
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