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Life along the Silk Road
Average Customer Review : 4.0/5 based on 10 reviews
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List Price : $18.95
Price : $12.89
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Editorial Reviews
With a nod to the storytelling traditions of the ancient central Asian bazaars that it describes, Life Along the Silk Road is a wily half-breed of a history book. Mixing narrative and historic minutiae, each chapter introduces an inhabitant of the Silk Road at the end of the 10th century. Following the lives and stories of the Merchant, the Soldier, the Monk, the Courtesan, and others, Susan Whitfield brings the dramatic history of pre-Islamic central Asia down to a human scale, fleshing out the battles of conquest and trade with the details of everyday life. Whitfield is the director of the British Library-sponsored Dunhuang Project, which makes a remarkable collection of ancient Silk Road manuscripts, including those acquired by legendary explorer Sir Aurel Stein, available on the Internet. Her knowledge of this treasure trove of primary material shows throughout the book. What is the choicest cut of meat from a camel? The hump. The Chinese recipe for curing possession by demons? It involves a number of ingredients, including a broiled centipede, with all the legs removed. What ancient Silk Road town was famous for its dancing girls? Read and see. --Ken Peavler
Spotlight Reviews
Interesting facts, but badly writted (2008-03-31)
Customer Review : 2
This book has an interesting story being told but the way it is told is extremely boring, monotonous and meticulous.
The Silk Road by Susan Whitfield (2008-02-23)
Customer Review : 5
This book is presented with different tales told by different people living along the Silk Road between 750 and 1000. The people e.g. A courtesan, merchant, monk, princess, soldier all have a different perspective. There is much detail to be found in the writing and I found that I needed to read it more than once and tales could be read on there own without much trouble.
Decamerone of the Silk Road (2008-02-10)
Customer Review : 4
This work of historical fiction by the director of the International Dunhuang Project at the British Library, fills a big hole in the narrative on the Middle and Late Tang period (700-900) and on the Silk Road itself. Describing the history of a Road is difficult and the best literary expedient is probably that adopted by the Author: a compendium of tales, tales of travellers, merchants, missionaries, monks, military men, princesses (sent as wives). From Samarkanda to Chang'an ten characters narrate the life tales describing happenings in micro and macrohistoric detail. From everyday life to important socio-political turmoils a glimpse of this world becomes possible and very engaging. The Author's intent is evidently that of making this period of history digestible and intriguing for the dilettante and this is also her drawback, since more peered reviewers have noticed a few incongruent associations and some historical errors in the text. However, even if not to be used as a study text, this book keeps all the promises it makes. The Introduction is concise and helps to correctly contextualize the successive tales, maps are explicative and illustrations are a real treat. The spelling of the many Turkic, Chinese, Uighur names is sometimes confusing and the Table of Rulers at the end of the book is to reductive, but the suggested Further Reading is useful and enlightening. Read enjoy and start travelling on the Silk Road, or what is left of it!.
Very interesting (2006-11-11)
Customer Review : 5
This book was very interesting. It really brought the Silk Road to life. I loved reading about various aspects of Silk Road life through different people's perspectives. I especially liked the inclusion of several women's perspectives.
It seems as though the book got most interesting 2/3 of the way through (2006-01-08)
Customer Review : 3
This book was not the most light reading historical fiction. (For a good, proper example, I'd recommend trying "Memoirs of a Geisha." That was an excellent book.) There is a way to make historical fiction more interesting, but for most of the book this author did not find it.
The Silk Road is something that is known about through popular mythology, but about which few historical details are given.
It was interesting to know that that particular area was very multicultural.
There was also exposition of some new information, not commonly known: 1. While there has been a Chinese state for around 2,300 years, much of the time it was very ineffectual or unable to be strong over long distances. 2. Tibet was at one time a great military power. It seems that the latest friction between Tibet and the central government of China is actually a continuation of something that has been going on for 1,000 years. 3. Arabs, at that time major military powers, played a fairly prominent role in some of the many clashes that occured during the setting of this book. 4. The Parsees of India had their origins in one of the MANY ethnic groups discussed in this book.
Overall the book is not that memorable, but still a fairly worthwhile read.
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