The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

by Peter Frankopan

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Frankopan relocates the centre of world history from Europe to the lands between East and West, arguing that the Silk Roads of Central Asia have been the true pivot of global exchange, conquest, and power for two thousand years. He traces how silk, spices, slaves, faiths, and ideas flowed along these routes, shaping empires from the Persians to the Mongols to today's resurgent Asia, and why the region is once again becoming the world's strategic heart.

Published:: 2015
Pages:: 636

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In the Conversation

In this collection, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World references 4 other books.

It draws on Guns, Germs, and Steel, Sapiens and The Lessons of History.

Scroll down to read the exact passages where other authors reference this book and what they say about it.

What This Book Draws On

The books Frankopan references and why each one mattered to the argument.

Engages Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel on the geographic roots of Eurasian dominance, but inverts the frame to argue that it was the connective corridors of Central Asia, not isolated continental advantages, that made the world modern

References

Guns, Germs, and Steel

by Jared Diamond

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Parallels Harari's Sapiens as a grand synthesis of human history, but replaces Harari's cognitive-revolution frame with a geographic one centreed on the Silk Roads as the true arteries of civilization

References

Sapiens

by Yuval Noah Harari

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Echoes Durant's Lessons of History on the rise and fall of civilizations, applying that long-wave lens specifically to the Eurasian heartland Durant treated only in passing

References

The Lessons of History

by Will Durant

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Challenges the institutional thesis of Why Nations Fail by showing that control of trade routes, not just inclusive institutions, determined which societies became rich and powerful across two millennia

References

Why Nations Fail

by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

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What Other Authors Say About It

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Intellectual Lineage

How ideas flow through the citation network. Ancestors are books this title builds on; descendants are books that build on it.

Builds on (2 layers deep)

Directly cites

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Sapiens

The Lessons of History

Why Nations Fail

2 steps back

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Influence

Justice

The Origin of Species

The Republic

The Descent of Man

Unexpected Connections

Books from completely different categories that share citation overlap with this one. These are the reads you would not find by browsing a single shelf.