The Silk Road
Connecting Histories and Futures
From the Great Game to the present, an international cultural and political biography of one of our most evocative, compelling, and poorly understood narratives of history.
The Silk Road is rapidly becoming one of the key geocultural and geostrategic concepts of the twenty-first century. Yet, for much of the twentieth century the Silk Road received little attention, overshadowed by nationalism and its invented pasts, and a world dominated by conflict and Cold War standoffs. In The Silk Road, Tim Winter reveals the different paths this history of connected cultures took towards global fame, a century after the first evidence of contact between China and Europe was unearthed. He also reveals how this remarkably popular depiction of the past took hold as a platform for geopolitical ambition, a celebration of peace and cosmopolitan harmony, and created dreams of exploration and grand adventure.
Winter further explores themes that reappear today as China seeks to revive the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century. Known across the globe, the Silk Road is a concept fit for the modern world, and yet its significance and origins remain poorly understood and are the subject of much confusion. Pathbreaking in its analysis, this book presents an entirely new reading of this increasingly important concept, one that is likely to remain at the center of world affairs for decades to come.
Explains how the Silk Road came to be so well known around the world and the reasons why it will be significant in the future
Offers a fundamentally new framework for understanding the Silk Road's significance across multiple sectors and countries
Critically examines the Silk Road as a narrative of international history and challenges the assumptions that underpin its popularity in academia
Unpacks the confusions that surround the Silk Road and reveals why it has become a space of competing claims
This book forms part of the Oxford Studies in Culture and Politics Series from Oxford University Press.
Now available
“Tim Winter reexamines the idea of the ‘Silk Road’ and shows that it has had a range of meanings over time, with significance for groups as far apart as geopoliticians and travel writers. This is a stimulating read that illuminates many aspects of the Sino-Western relationship”
“This remarkable and ambitious book could not be more timely, given the necessity of understanding the ‘‘Silk Road(s)’ in this time of deepening global shifts and tensions. Winter combines extraordinary scholarly depth and breadth, as he draws apart the many elements, ideas, and associations ascribed to this compelling geocultural and geostrategic concept.
By looking at the intersections of popular culture, political events, and expert commentary, he shows how ‘the Silk Road’ is used by different actors, in evolving ways, to make historical, cultural, and political claims around space, connectivity, and values. This book is an interdisciplinary masterpiece and deserves close attention from all analysts of the Silk Road”