This book's full title is Silk Roads, a New History of the World. I must admit I have read more Western than Eastern history. However, I have always been fascinated by the Eastern half of the Eurasian continent and its history. Peter Frankopan has a unique way of looking at history. I am always fascinated by history with different views and outlooks of history. It is what makes reading history a pleasure. This is also a very readable book.
There are some negative reviews. It seems that for some readers their expectations were not met. The main thing I think is because the when he talks about Silk Roads, he uses it as a metaphor for trade routes rather than just about the Silk Road. Peter Frankopan has his own site here.
There as some very good reviews of this book on Amazon but you have to scroll to the bottom of the page. Anthony Sattin gives an interesting review in The Guardian. Robert Irwin also does a good review in the Independent.
For this video from University of Oxford has other speakers about this book as well as Peter Frankopan. Peter Frankopan does not come on until around 26.42 if you want to skip to where he is speaking. The whole thing is about 1 hour long. A visiting lecturer Valerie Hansen at Williams College talks about the Silk Road and this book. Peter Frankopan speaks at Liverpool John Moores University. The title of the lecture is: The Silk Roads: Questioning the Eurocentric view of history.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
