Product Description

The Silk Road conjures up images of romance and mystery. This illustrated history of the trade connections that linked the Mediterranean world with China is a must for those interested in the Silk Road as a travel destination and for those who love adventure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #170511 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 575 pages

About the Author
Luce Boulnois was born in France in 1931. She studied Chinese and Russian at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO) in Paris. After receiving her degree, she spent seven years as a translator. It was during this period that her interest in the Soviet republics of Central Asia began. From 1958, she carried out research work on the Silk Road which led, four years later, to the publication of her first book, The Silk Road (Arthaud). The book was a great success and was translated into a dozen languages, including Chinese and Japanese.

Customer Reviews

how silk came west
This book is a fantastic cultural adventure and should be read by anyone interested in cross-cultural relationships. More than a topographical description of the silk road, it is a gallop though history explaining paths taken by silk to get to Europe. It starts in prehistoric china and ends with the Karakorum highway, synthetizing in twenty chapters the reasons for the often difficult diffusion of luxury products from the Far East. The author, that evidently knows well chinese history and mentality, takes us by hand into the ancient cinese political issues as to foreign commerce, the fundamental role played by Iranians, byzantines and arabs during the Middle Ages up to the wary reciprocal opening of European and Cinese worlds due to brave and curious travelers. So we meet princesses, monks and merchants and get to know their fascinanting stories. One point of force of the book is the meticulous and modern analysis of these travel tales, so we have a critical perspective of what has come down in history and makes up our cultural background. Marco Polo get's revisited and also less well known ancient and modern travelers are cited.
Boulnois loves silk (her detailed description of materials of the old world and how they were made is enlightening)and its history, so she brings us to her country, France, and to the evolution of the silk industry in the XIX and XX century. And this somehow closes the circle of the story of this precious tissue that reached its apogeum in the last century.
The book however is much more than this and carries a great amount of information. It could be described actually as a textbook on the history of silk. It is well written even if not too easy to read, and sometimes it is a little repetitive.
I enjoyed it very much and feel enriched by its reading.

Good intentions but chaotic
This book is interesting to the general reader but it is very hard to use in a classroom setting. There are many repetitions, too many different names for the students to remember and very little linear thinking. Sometime the author will loose herself in the lengthy description of a particular textile, or dye or mineral, and forget about the general line of thought that she was pursuing. Shea also often will put two or three topics that have little to do with each other in the same chapter. A wide-ranging and impressive knowledge of the subject but quite disappointing as a teaching tool.

Cross Cultural
This is the book I wish I had written. I have traveled in most of these countries and studied their history and culture. I was so thrilled to see the information pulled together and the follow-through to show the outcomes of movements and trade goods. Fascinating. Loved it!!