The King’s Road: Diplomacy and the Remaking of the Silk Road
By Xin Wen
()
About this ebook
An exciting and richly detailed new history of the Silk Road that tells how it became more important as a route for diplomacy than for trade
The King’s Road offers a new interpretation of the history of the Silk Road, emphasizing its importance as a diplomatic route, rather than a commercial one. Tracing the arduous journeys of diplomatic envoys, Xin Wen presents a rich social history of long-distance travel that played out in deserts, post stations, palaces, and polo fields. The book tells the story of the everyday lives of diplomatic travelers on the Silk Road—what they ate and drank, the gifts they carried, and the animals that accompanied them—and how they navigated a complex web of geographic, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. It also describes the risks and dangers envoys faced along the way—from financial catastrophe to robbery and murder.
Using documents unearthed from the famous Dunhuang “library cave” in Western China, The King’s Road paints a detailed picture of the intricate network of trans-Eurasian transportation and communication routes that was established between 850 and 1000 CE. By exploring the motivations of the kings who dispatched envoys along the Silk Road and describing the transformative social and economic effects of their journeys, the book reveals the inner workings of an interstate network distinct from the Sino-centric “tributary” system.
In shifting the narrative of the Silk Road from the transport of commodities to the exchange of diplomatic gifts and personnel, The King’s Road puts the history of Eastern Eurasia in a new light.
Related to The King’s Road
Related ebooks
The African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSocialist Cosmopolitanism: The Chinese Literary Universe, 1945-1965 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoet-Monks: The Invention of Buddhist Poetry in Late Medieval China Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBorder Work: Spatial Lives of the State in Rural Central Asia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSettling for Less: Why States Colonize and Why They Stop Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSymptoms of an Unruly Age: Li Zhi and Cultures of Early Modernity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHuman Forms: The Novel in the Age of Evolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA World Trimmed with Fur: Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of Qing Rule Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of Futures Past: Anticipation and the Ends of Literature in Contemporary China Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Is a Classic?: Postcolonial Rewriting and Invention of the Canon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlong the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mount Wutai: Visions of a Sacred Buddhist Mountain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and Islam in Modern Egypt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDystopia's Provocateurs: Peasants, State, and Informality in the Polish-German Borderlands Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Semblance of Identity: Aesthetic Mediation in Asian American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeyond the Steppe Frontier: A History of the Sino-Russian Border Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Baroque: Pearls and the Nature of Empire, 1492-1700 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Common Strangeness: Contemporary Poetry, Cross-Cultural Encounter, Comparative Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe New Deal: A Global History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPolyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China: Survival Strategies and Judicial Interventions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spirits of Crossbones Graveyard: Time, Ritual, and Sexual Commerce in London Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKnow Your Remedies: Pharmacy and Culture in Early Modern China Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Chinese Looks: Fashion, Performance, Race Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpenser's ethics: Empire, mutability, and moral philosophy in early modernity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNatural Resources and the New Frontier: Constructing Modern China's Borderlands Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFiguring Korean Futures: Children’s Literature in Modern Korea Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpectacular Suffering: Witnessing Slavery in the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories between Christianity and Islam: Saints, Memory, and Cultural Exchange in Late Antiquity and Beyond Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArrested Development: The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, 1955–1968 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Asian History For You
The Last Yakuza: life and death in the Japanese underworld Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sūtra Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Ieyasu Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShinto the Kami Way Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bushido: The Samurai Code of Japan: With an Extensive Introduction and Notes by Alexander Bennett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Caste (Oprah's Book Club): by Isabel Wilkerson - The Origins of Our Discontents - A Comprehensive Summary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'brainwashing' in China Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962—1976 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Myths & Legends of Japan: Study of Japanese Folklore (Illustrated Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnit 731: Testimony Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unit 731: The Forgotten Asian Auschwitz Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mao Tse-Tung On Guerrilla Warfare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vory: Russia's Super Mafia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 3]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wise Thoughts for Every Day: On God, Love, the Human Spirit, and Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago: The Authorized Abridgement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Voices from Chernobyl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Capitalist Manifesto Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The King’s Road
0 ratings0 reviews