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Title: Life along the Silk Road by Susan Whitfield ISBN: 0-520-23214-3 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 06 August, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: History As It Should Be Told
Comment: Life Along the Silk Road acquaints us with the history of a place remote in time and space through a series of ten biographies of men and women who lived over a thousand years ago, including such characters as a Central Asian Trader, a Dancer who witnesses the most terrible civil war in ancient Chinese history, a Buddhist monk from Kashmir, and a Buddhist fresco painter. The stage is immense--from the capital of the mighty Chinese Tang Dynasty to the fabled city of Samarkand in today's Uzbekistan.
Professor Whitfield weaves these semi-fictionalized accounts together from a series of documents discovered 100 years ago in the Chinese desert town of Dunhuang. The book is filled with small, vivid details of everyday existence which bring the ancient Silk road to life. This is no ordinary history book--if you have any interest in ancient China, Central Asia, or the silk road, this book is essential! The only reason I don't give the book five stars is that Professor Whitfield's writing is a bit wooden.
I would also recommend Edward Schafer's ANCIENT CHINA (Time-Life Books, 1967). Schafer was a master of prose style and every page sparkles with life. His work is the best introduction to Chinese history you'll find. It is out of print, but easily obtainable through Amazon for a few dollars.
Rating: 3
Summary: Vivid
Comment: For historical dilettantes like me, it's easier to understand a time and place not through a recitation of the places and dates of battles and monarchial successions, but through the lives of people who lived then and there. Traditional histories say who won the battles, but not what life was like between those battles. Here, a qualified academic tries to accomodate people like me, showing Central and Eastern Asisa's history during the heyday of the Silk Road through a series of brief vingettes profiling the lives of various types of people who lived then. The professor's writing is stiff, but her intentions are honorable and her technique is effective. Her depiction of the Silk Road through its denizens drew me in with everyday detail from the period, which placed the greater historical details, like Chinese dynastic changes and which nations gained ascendancy at what time, into a context I could understand. I imagine others, including university students, might benefit from the author's methods.
Rating: 3
Summary: Well researched, not as well written
Comment: While the characters of this book were very interesting and the research helped to create a deep and rich group of people, I found that there were issues for me with the writing style itself. Whitfeild is a gifted historian and does her homework very well, but there are times when she lapses into cliched and confusing language that alienates me from the characters she has created. For a good history lesson, I recommend it, but for a rewarding read, it falls a little short.
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Title: The Silk Road : Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia by Frances Wood ISBN: 0520237862 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Exchange from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century by Richard C. Foltz ISBN: 0312233388 Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Pub. Date: 02 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk ISBN: 0870234358 Publisher: Univ. of Massachusetts Press Pub. Date: March, 1984 List Price(USD): $17.09 |
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Title: The Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo, Ronald Latham ISBN: 0140440577 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: September, 1958 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433 by Louise Levathes ISBN: 0195112075 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: January, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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