Tracking Trade-inspired Globalization Over More Than a Millennium
S. Frederick Starr
This absorbing but curiously misnamed book is more than the story of the “Silk Roads” and less than a “History of the World.” Peter Frankopan, an Oxford specialist on Byzantium, presents some two dozen “roads” or episodes in the history of Europe and Asia over two millennia, of which the Silk Road phase is only one. And while he claims to write a history of the world, whole civilizations and continents, including Africa and the Americas, enter his story only when they come under the influence of Europeans. Japan barely rates a mention. His real focus is the Eurasian landmass, and his goal is to convince readers that the stories of Asia and Europe are really one, that they interacted constantly in the past and that they do so even more today.
Related Publications
-
Turkey’s Problem Isn’t Sweden. It’s the United States.
The issue isn’t what Sweden says or does but what the United States does or fails to do on the ground in Syria that matters for Turkey’s national security interests. […]
-
TURKISH QUAGMIRE: WHY TURKEY BLOCKS SWEDEN’S NATO ACCESSION
Turkey was bound to have issues with Sweden and its pro-Kurdish stance, and singled out Sweden because of its longstanding commitment to Kurdish aspirations. However, it is the continued US […]
-
Turkey’s Opposition Can’t Win Without the Working Class
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), has a realistic chance of defeating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the upcoming presidential election on May 14. […]
-
Promise And Peril In The Caucasus
America’s national security bureaucracy separates the Caucasus and the Middle East into different bureaus, with Central Asia in yet another office. This is part of the reason the U.S. has […]
-
European Economic Self-defense in the Face of Authoritarianism
Economic coercion by states has always been present in one form or the other, but the challenges have escalated to an unprecedented level in today’s globalized economy. Most notably, as […]
-
What does China as Peacemaker between Saudi Arabia and Iran Mean to India?
The China-brokered March peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia – the leaders of the Shia and Sunni worlds, respectively – is certainly an incredible achievement. As highlighted in the […]