Xinru Liu

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.

The Silk Road in World History

This book deals with the silk trade in Eurasia between the seventh and twelfth centuries and explores how religious ideas and institutions affected economic behavior.

An Exploration of Material Life and the Thought of People, AD 600-1200

Silk and Religion

Peter Brown

Robert L. Tignor

Stephen Kotkin

Gyan Prakash

Holly Pittman

Michael Tsin

Suzanne Marchand

Stephen Aron

Brent Shaw

Jeremy Adelman

Benjamin Elman

A truly global approach to world history built around significant world history stories.

A History of the World: from 1000 CE to the Present

Worlds Together, Worlds Apart

Robert Tignor

"A truly global approach to world history, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart is organized around major world history stories and themes: the emergence of cities, the building of the Silk Road, the spread of major religions, the spread of the Black Death, the Age of Exploration, alternatives to nineteenth-century capitalism, the rise of modern nation-states and empires, and others ... The authors have refreshed throughout coverage of the environment in addition to cutting edge scholarship, designed to help students think critically, master content and make connections across time and place."--Provided by publisher.

Alan Karras

Elizabeth Pollard

Clifford Rosenberg

A streamlined and simplified global history

Worlds Together, Worlds Apart with Sources

Worlds Together Worlds Apart

Peter Brown	

Stephen Kotkin	

Worlds Together, Worlds Apart is organized around major world history stories and themes: the emergence of cities, the building of the Silk Road, the spread of major religions, the spread of the Black Death, the Age of Exploration, alternatives to nineteenth-century capitalism, the rise of modern nation-states and empires, and others. The Fourth Edition of this successful text has been streamlined, shortened, and features a new suite of tools designed to help students think critically, master content and make connections across time and place.

Fourth International Student Edition

World Together, Worlds Apart

For more than 1500 years, across more than 4000 miles, the Silk Roads connected East and West. These overland trails and sea lanes carried not only silks, but also cotton textiles, dyes, horses, incense, spices, gems, glass, and ceramics along with religious ideas, governing customs, and technology. For this book, Xinru Liu has assembled primary sources from ancient China, India, Central Asia, Rome and the Mediterranean, and the Islamic world, many of them difficult to access and some translated into English for the first time. Court histories, geographies and philosophical treatises, letters, travelers’ accounts, inventories, inscriptions, laws, religious texts, and more, introduce students to the complexities of cultural exchange. Liu’s thoughtful introduction considers the many ways the peoples along the Silk Roads interacted and helps students understand the implications for economies and societies, as well as political and religious institutions, over space and time. Maps, document headnotes and annotations, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support.

A Brief History with Documents

The Silk Roads

Hsin-ju Liu

Xinru Xinru Liu

Director Department of Ancient and Medieval History Xinru Liu

India and China are two of the most important civilizations of the ancient world. Looking at the relations between these empires before the 6th century A.D., Xinru Liu conclusively establishes the transmission of Buddhism from India to China, and describes the various items of commercial trade.

Trade and Religious Exchanges, AD 1-600

Ancient India and Ancient China

Lynda Shaffer

This first edition text examines the remarkable histories of the societies and peoples who fostered Eurasian trade and communication in the almost two millennia before 1500 C.E. A study in the early history of “globalization,” the commercial and cultural exchanges explored in this volume provide students not only with a greater knowledge of the past, but also a deeper understanding of our world today.

Connections Across Eurasia: Transportation, Communication, and Cultural Exchange on the Silk Roads

A truly global approach to world history built around significant world history stories. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart is organized around major world history stories and themes: the emergence of cities, the building of the Silk Road, the spread of major religions, the spread of the Black Death, the Age of Exploration, alternatives to nineteenth-century capitalism, the rise of modern nation-states and empires, and others. The Fourth Edition of this successful text has been streamlined, shortened, and features a new suite of tools designed to help students think critically, master content and make connections across time and place.

Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World: Beginnings Through the Fifteenth Century (Fourth Edition)

The Silk Road was the contemporary name for a complex of ancient trade routes linking East Asia with Central Asia, South Asia, and the Mediterranean world. This network of exchange emerged along the borders between agricultural China and the steppe nomads during the Han Dynasty (206BCE-220CE), in consequence of the inter-dependence and the conflicts of these two distinctive societies. In their quest for horses, fragrances, spices, gems, glassware, and other exotics from the lands to their west, the Han Empire extended its dominion over the oases around the Takla Makan Desert and sent silk all the way to the Mediterranean, either through the land routes leading to the caravan city of Palmyra in Syria desert, or by way of northwest India, the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea, landing at Alexandria. The Silk Road survived the turmoil of the demise of the Han and Roman Empires, reached its golden age during the early middle age, when the Byzantine Empire and the Tang Empire became centers of silk culture and established the models for high culture of the Eurasian world. The coming of Islam extended silk culture to an even larger area and paved the way for an expanded market for textiles and other commodities. By the 11th century, however, the Silk Road was in decline because of intense competition from the sea routes of the Indian Ocean. Using supply and demand as the framework for analyzing the formation and development of the Silk Road, the book examines the dynamics of the interactions of the nomadic pastoralists with sedentary agriculturalists, and the spread of new ideas, religions, and values into the world of commerce, thus illustrating the cultural forces underlying material transactions. This effort at tracing the interconnections of the diverse participants in the transcontinental Silk Road exchange will demonstrate that the world had been linked through economic and ideological forces long before the modern era.

Xinru Liu

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