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History Books

The Silk Road: A New History by Valerie Hansen
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The Silk Road: A New History

by Valerie Hansen

Recommendations from our site

“My book focuses on seven Silk Road sites and proceeds in chronological order. It starts in Northwest China, about the second century AD, and continues up through the age of Marco Polo. Many people erroneously think that the Silk Road connected China with Rome. There is very little evidence of direct contact between the Han dynasty or its successors and Rome. But there’s lots of evidence of contact between China and Iran. At the end of each chapter, I include a collection of selected primary sources for each Silk Road site, some very rare, which give readers the chance to read the words of, for instance, Chinese pilgrims and Marco Polo.” Read more...

The best books on The Silk Road

Valerie Hansen, Historian

Other books by Valerie Hansen

The Open Empire: A History of China to 1800 by Valerie Hansen

The Open Empire: A History of China to 1800
by Valerie Hansen

The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World―and Globalization Began by Valerie Hansen

The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World―and Globalization Began
by Valerie Hansen

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