The Silk Roads Synopsis
The sun is setting on the Western world. Slowly but surely, the direction in which the world spins has reversed: where for the last five centuries the globe turned westwards on its axis, it now turns to the east...
For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in the west - in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of adventure and riches. The region stretching from eastern Europe and sweeping right across Central Asia deep into China and India, is taking centre stage in international politics, commerce and culture - and is shaping the modern world.
This region, the true centre of the earth, is obscure to many in the English-speaking world. Yet this is where civilization itself began, where the world's great religions were born and took root.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781408839973 |
| Publication date: |
27th August 2015 |
| Author: |
Peter Frankopan |
| Publisher: |
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| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
656 pages |
| Primary Genre |
History
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| Other Genres: |
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Peter Frankopan Press Reviews
The axis of history writing seemed to shift east with Frankopan's sweeping history, which placed the Silk Road at the very centre of world events -- Books of the Decade - Sunday Times
Many books have been written which claim to be A New History of the World . This one fully deserves the title...It is difficult, in a short review, to do justice to a book so ambitious, so detailed and so fascinating as this one -- Gerald DeGroot - The Times
A book that roves as widely as the geography it describes, encompassing worlds as far removed as those of Herodotus and Saddam Hussein, Hammurabi and Hitler...It is a tribute to Frankopan's scholarship and mastery of sources in multiple languages that he is as sure-footed on the ancient world as he is on the medieval and modern -- Justin Marozzi - Sunday Times
My book of the year: history on a grand scale, with a sweep of ambition that is rare ... A remarkable book on many levels, and one that anyone would have been proud to write: a proper historical epic of dazzling range, ambition and achievement -- William Dalrymple - Observer
The most illuminating book of the year ... A healthy antidote to Eurocentric accounts of history -- Books of the Year - Times Literary Supplement
Splendid ... tightly researched ... invigorating and profound with enough storytelling to excite the reader and enough fresh scholarship to satisfy the intellect...charismatic and essential -- Bettany Hughes - Daily Telegraph
A rare book that makes you question your assumptions about the world - Wall Street Journal
Dazzlingly good - Evening Standard
Based on astonishingly wide and deep reading and in all areas draws on the latest research... It is full of vivid and recondite details - Independent
Full of intriguing insights and fascinating details - Observer
With extraordinary erudition and a vivid style, he takes us on a dazzling tour of these parts from the rise of the first empires right through to the present - Open (Weekly)
Beautifully constructed, a terrific and exhilarating read and a new perspective on world history -- Averil Cameron - History Today
As well-written, entertaining, disturbing and exciting as a detective story - Svenska Dagbladet
A dazzling piece of historical writing - South China Morning Post
This book lives up to its claim to be a new history of the world because of its geopolitical paradigm shift ... He is a Herodotus of the twenty first century - Irish Left Review
Monumental...prodigious...astonishing. Frankopan is an exhilarating companion for the journey along the routes which conveyed silk, slaves, ideas, religion, and disease, and around which today may hang the destiny of the world - Vanity Fair
An exceptional storyteller ... Frankopan does a superb job of explaining the history that has led to this modern era of new Silk Roads running across the spine of Asia. ... Frankopan's book will be indispensable to anyone who wants to make sense of this union of past and present - Dallas Morning News
Sumptuous, intriguing and surprising -- Sir Paddy Ashdown
A big book like this would have taken the whole year to read if I had followed up every reference that piqued my interest -- Readers' Books of the Year 2016 - Guardian
About Peter Frankopan
Peter Frankopan is Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, and Director the Centre for Byzantine Research at Oxford University. He took a First in History and was Schiff Scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge, before completing his doctorate at Oxford, where he was Senior Scholar at Corpus Christi College.
He has lectured at leading universities all over the world, including Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, NYU, King's College London and the Institute of Historical Research.
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, was a No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller and remained in the top 10 for nine months after publication. It was named one of the ‘Books of the Decade’ 2010–2020 by the Sunday Times.
The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World was published by Bloomsbury in 2018 and won the Human Sciences prize of the Carical Foundation in 2019.
Photo credit Jonathan Ring.
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