Foreign Devils On The Silk Road

Author : Peter Hopkirk
Publisher : John Murray
ISBN 13 : 1848546327
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Foreign Devils on the Silk Road written by Peter Hopkirk and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2011-09-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Silk Road, which linked imperial Rome and distant China, was once the greatest thoroughfare on earth. Along it travelled precious cargoes of silk, gold and ivory, as well as revolutionary new ideas. Its oasis towns blossomed into thriving centres of Buddhist art and learning. In time it began to decline. The traffic slowed, the merchants left and finally its towns vanished beneath the desert sands to be forgotten for a thousand years. But legends grew up of lost cities filled with treasures and guarded by demons. In the early years of the last century foreign explorers began to investigate these legends, and very soon an international race began for the art treasures of the Silk Road. Huge wall paintings, sculptures and priceless manuscripts were carried away, literally by the ton, and are today scattered through the museums of a dozen countries. Peter Hopkirk tells the story of the intrepid men who, at great personal risk, led these long-range archaeological raids, incurring the undying wrath of the Chinese.

Author : Peter Hopkirk
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Foreign Devils on the Silk Road written by Peter Hopkirk and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Peter Hopkirk
Publisher : John Murray Pubs Limited
ISBN 13 : 9780719564482
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.84/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Foreign Devils on the Silk Road written by Peter Hopkirk and published by John Murray Pubs Limited. This book was released on 2006 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Silk Road, which linked imperial Rome and distant China, was once the greatest thoroughfare on earth. Along it travelled precious cargoes of silk, gold and ivory, as well as revolutionary new ideas. Its oasis towns blossomed into thriving centres of Buddhist art and learning. In time it began to decline. The traffic slowed, the merchants left and finally its towns vanished beneath the desert sands to be forgotten for a thousand years. But legends grew up of lost cities filled with treasures and guarded by demons. In the early years of the last century foreign explorers began to investigate these legends, and very soon an international race began for the art treasures of the Silk Road. Huge wall paintings, sculptures and priceless manuscripts were carried away, literally by the ton, and are today scattered through the museums of a dozen countries. Peter Hopkirk tells the story of the intrepid men who, at great personal risk, led these long-range archaeological raids, incurring the undying wrath of the Chinese.

Author : Xinru Liu
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0195338103
Total Pages : 169 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Silk Road in World History written by Xinru Liu and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient trade routes that made up the Silk Road were some of the great conduits of cultural and material exchange in world history. In this intriguing book, Xinru Liu reveals both why and how this long-distance trade in luxury goods emerged in the late third century BCE, following its story through to the Mongol conquest. Liu starts with China's desperate need for what the Chinese called "the heavenly horses" of Central Asia, and describes how the traders who brought these horses also brought other exotic products, some all the way from the Mediterranean. Likewise, the Roman Empire, as a result of its imperial ambition as well as the desire of its citizens for Chinese silk, responded with easterly explorations for trade. The book shows how the middle men, the Kushan Empire, spread Buddhism to China. Missionaries and pilgrims facilitated cave temples along the mountainous routes and monasteries in various oases and urban centers, forming the backbone of the Silk Road. The author also explains how Islamic and Mongol conquerors in turn controlled the various routes until the rise of sea travel diminished their importance.

Author : Brandon Caro
Publisher : Post Hill Press
ISBN 13 : 1618688715
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Old Silk Road written by Brandon Caro and published by Post Hill Press. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Norman “Doc” Rodgers is in a world of pain. A young combat medic in Afghanistan, he’s eager to avenge his father’s death in the World Trade Center and make sense of a new world that feels like it’s fallen to pieces. Haunted by hallucinatory encounters his only solace is a barely concealed addiction to the precious opiates he’s supposed to dole out sparingly to those beyond help. Old Silk Road weaves a striking tale of permanent terror, hazy objectives, shadowy contractors and the toll of modern warfare on soldiers and civilians alike. In this tautly-plotted debut novel Caro, a veteran who served in Afghanistan, tells the story of a soldier’s undoing in raw, incendiary and hypnotic prose. It’s an extraordinary portrait one soldier’s frustration, confusion and ambivalence, written by someone who’s been there.

Author : Peter Hopkirk
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780192802323
Total Pages : 588 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Great Game written by Peter Hopkirk and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly a century the two most powerful nations on earth - Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia - fought a secret war in the lonely passes and deserts of Central Asia. Those engaged in this shadowy struggle called it 'The Great Game', a phrase immortalized in Kipling's Kim. When play firstbegan the two rival empires lay nearly 2,000 miles apart. By the end, some Russian outposts were within 20 miles of India.This book tells the story of the Great Game through the exploits of the young officers, both British and Russian, who risked their lives playing it. Disguised as holy men or native horsetraders, they mapped secret passes, gathered intelligence, and sought the allegiance of powerful khans. Some neverreturned.

Author : Johan Elverskog
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812205316
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road written by Johan Elverskog and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-06-06 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the contemporary world the meeting of Buddhism and Islam is most often imagined as one of violent confrontation. Indeed, the Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 seemed not only to reenact the infamous Muslim destruction of Nalanda monastery in the thirteenth century but also to reaffirm the stereotypes of Buddhism as a peaceful, rational philosophy and Islam as an inherently violent and irrational religion. But if Buddhist-Muslim history was simply repeated instances of Muslim militants attacking representations of the Buddha, how had the Bamiyan Buddha statues survived thirteen hundred years of Muslim rule? Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road demonstrates that the history of Buddhist-Muslim interaction is much richer and more complex than many assume. This groundbreaking book covers Inner Asia from the eighth century through the Mongol empire and to the end of the Qing dynasty in the late nineteenth century. By exploring the meetings between Buddhists and Muslims along the Silk Road from Iran to China over more than a millennium, Johan Elverskog reveals that this long encounter was actually one of profound cross-cultural exchange in which two religious traditions were not only enriched but transformed in many ways.

Author : Colin Thubron
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0061809624
Total Pages : 404 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shadow of the Silk Road written by Colin Thubron and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shadow of the Silk Road records a journey along the greatest land route on earth. Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran and into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron covers some seven thousand miles in eight months. Making his way by local bus, truck, car, donkey cart and camel, he travels from the tomb of the Yellow Emperor, the mythic progenitor of the Chinese people, to the ancient port of Antioch—in perhaps the most difficult and ambitious journey he has undertaken in forty years of travel. The Silk Road is a huge network of arteries splitting and converging across the breadth of Asia. To travel it is to trace the passage not only of trade and armies but also of ideas, religions and inventions. But alongside this rich and astonishing past, Shadow of the Silk Road is also about Asia today: a continent of upheaval. One of the trademarks of Colin Thubron's travel writing is the beauty of his prose; another is his gift for talking to people and getting them to talk to him. Shadow of the Silk Road encounters Islamic countries in many forms. It is about changes in China, transformed since the Cultural Revolution. It is about false nationalisms and the world's discontented margins, where the true boundaries are not political borders but the frontiers of tribe, ethnicity, language and religion. It is a magnificent and important account of an ancient world in modern ferment.

Author : James A. Millward
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199323852
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction written by James A. Millward and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-10 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The phrase "silk road" evokes vivid scenes of merchants leading camel caravans across vast stretches to trade exotic goods in glittering Oriental bazaars, of pilgrims braving bandits and frozen mountain passes to spread their faith across Asia. Looking at the reality behind these images, this Very Short Introduction illuminates the historical background against which the silk road flourished, shedding light on the importance of old-world cultural exchange to Eurasian and world history. On the one hand, historian James A. Millward treats the silk road broadly, to stand in for the cross-cultural communication between peoples across the Eurasian continent since at least the Neolithic era. On the other, he highlights specific examples of goods and ideas exchanged between the Mediterranean, Persia, India, and China, along with the significance of these exchanges. While including silks, spices, and travelers' tales of colorful locales, the book explains the dynamics of Central Eurasian history that promoted Silk Road interactions--especially the role of nomad empires--highlighting the importance of the biological, technological, artistic, intellectual, and religious interchanges across the continent. Millward shows that these exchanges had a profound effect on the old world that was akin to, if not on the scale of, modern globalization. He also disputes the idea that the silk road declined after the collapse of the Mongol empire or the opening of direct sea routes from Europe to Asia, showing how silk road phenomena continued through the early modern and modern expansion of the Russian and Chinese states across Central Asia. Millward concludes that the idea of the silk road has remained powerful, not only as a popular name for boutiques and restaurants, but also in modern politics and diplomacy, such as U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's "Silk Road Initiative" for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Author : Priscilla Galloway
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780329743376
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Adventures on the Ancient Silk Road written by Priscilla Galloway and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides accounts of journeys undertaken by three men along the Silk Road, including seventh-century Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang, Mongolian warrior Genghis Khan, and thirteenth-century merchant Marco Polo.