Book SummaryThe Silk Roads, by Peter Frankopan

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Silk Roads

In The Silk Roads, historian Peter Frankopan identifies Central and Western Asia—which he defines as the region between the Mediterranean and the Himalayas, encompassing the Eurasian steppes and the Middle East—as the crossroads of human civilization. Frankopan writes that this area has been the birthplace of the world’s major religions, the battleground where the great empires of history rose and fell, and the garden from which today’s global economy first sprouted.

In ancient times, trade routes known as the Silk Roads (so called because silk—as a durable, non-perishable, highly valued, and easily transported good—was used as a medium of exchange) first brought European merchants to the luxury markets of the East, enabling the flow of both material goods and ideas from East to West. According to Frankopan, the Silk Roads have always been history’s crucial connection point, spreading not just luxury goods like silk and spices, but also technology, religion, languages, cultures, ideologies, and even conflicts and diseases.

In this guide, we explore Frankopan’s history of the Silk Roads chronologically, looking at:

• The beginning of the Silk Roads in ancient times
• The rise of Islam in the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century CE and its impact on the world
• The...

The Silk Roads Summary Part 1: The Ancient World and the Beginning of the Silk Roads

Frankopan writes that a defining feature of the ancient world was the rise and fall of large, multicultural, multiethnic empires, such as the Persian Achaemenid Empire and the Roman Empire. These great empires competed with each other for control over the Central Asian and Middle Eastern heartlands, which, because of their abundant natural resources and strategic location, were these empires’ main sources of economic and military strength.

The Economic and Military Importance of the Steppes

Part of the reason that this region was so crucial to the success of the ancient empires, from Persia to China, was that these lands were inhabited by nomadic steppe peoples who were important trading partners with the settled peoples of the great empires. The Chinese and Persian empires sent goods like grain, textiles, iron, and bronze to the Scythians and Sarmatians of the steppes in exchange for honey, furs, horses, cattle, and slaves. Access to these trade routes was a vital source of wealth for the ancient empires.

Equally as important, the steppe peoples were perhaps the first to master the domestication of...

The Silk Roads Summary Part 2: The Rise of Islam

Frankopan writes that the rise of Islam in the Arabian peninsula would once again prove in spectacular fashion that the East—in this case, the lands that comprise the modern Middle East—was the center stage in global religious, political, and cultural developments.

Islam’s Popular Appeal and Military Success

In 610 CE, the prophet Muhammad, living in the city of Mecca on the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula (present-day Saudi Arabia), first recorded his revelation from the angel Gabriel, who told him to preach the word of the one God, Allah. Frankopan argues that Muhammad’s message of spiritual and material salvation for the faithful and punishment and damnation for unbelievers found willing adherents in a region disillusioned with perceived failures of the old gods, riven by religious factionalism, and scarred by warfare.

Islam attracted followers by appealing to Arab tribal solidarity, emphasizing the common interests and experiences of the tribes of southern Arabia—in marked contrast to the powerful neighboring Byzantine and Persian Empires, both of which sought to control and dominate the region by playing local tribes against one another. Islam also attracted...

The Silk Roads Summary Part 3: The Emergence of Europe

With the Christian West’s emergence onto the world stage in the wake of the Crusades, Frankopan writes that new European powers began to assert their dominance in Asia and the Middle East as the Middle Ages gave way to the early modern period.

The Bubonic Plague

As Frankopan notes, the Silk Roads didn’t just bring new luxury goods from the East to the West. The new trading networks also brought terrifying diseases like the bubonic plague from their endemic home on the Central Asian steppes into Europe and the Middle East—unleashing a pandemic that would kill tens of millions of people in the mid-14th century. (An estimated 30 to 60% of the population of Europe perished.)

The Origins of the Plague in Kyrgyzstan

Recent scholarship has tracked down [the precise origins of the 1347 bubonic plague...

The Silk Roads Summary Part 4: Into the Modern Era

World War I would forever alter the international order, according to Frankopan. The old colonial empires of Britain and France, although victorious in the war, emerged greatly weakened, while the old multinational empires of Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottomans collapsed altogether. Out of the ashes of the devastating conflict would arise new international economic, political, and military rivalries that still dominate our world today. But the root of these power struggles would remain where it had been for centuries—in the East.

(Shortform note: Scholars agree with Frankopan that the war’s legacy can be seen most clearly in the complex power politics that define the modern Middle East. They trace these conflicts to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled over much of the region from the late 13th century to the end of World War I in 1918. In particular, the end of Ottoman imperial rule created a new political space for the rise of nationalism and movements for self-determination in the multiethnic region. The creation of new nationalist governments in...

The Silk Roads Summary Part 5: The Decline of the West and the Resurgence of the East

Although the US and Soviet Union emerged from World War II as the world’s superpowers, the East would begin to reassert its political centrality and chart its own destiny in the latter third of the 20th century and into the 21st.

Oil Shocks of the 1970s

America’s willingness to engage in risky political maneuvering for control of Middle Eastern oil resources showed that, for all its economic and military might, the country was highly vulnerable to oil supply shocks. Indeed, Frankopan notes that this was true of nearly all Western economies. In 1973, the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an oil embargo on all the countries that had supported Israel in the just-concluded Yom Kippur War. This led to massive oil price hikes and inflation in the United States and Western Europe. For the first time in decades, people in the West saw how vulnerable their governments and economies were to geopolitical developments on the other side of the world.

(Shortform note: Some commentators argue that [the oil embargo actually produced long-term benefits for the US and other industrialized...

Shortform Exercise: Understand The Silk Roads

Reflect on Asia’s pivotal role in world history.

Why do you think Asia has exerted such a powerful influence on global geopolitics since ancient times?