The Silk Road in History

Catalog description

This online (asynchronous) course introduces the Silk Road as a driving force in history with emphasis on its role as a facilitator of cross-cultural encounters. Until Columbus’s voyage across the Atlantic opened up travel to the New World, the network of land routes and sea passages known as the Silk Road served as the main world axis for the circulation of commercial goods, luxury items, religious beliefs, people, technologies, ideas, diseases and more. At its peak, trade on the Silk Road dominated the world’s long-distance commercial economy, and control of it served as the basis for the creation and expansion of great states. In addition to the Chinese, Roman, and Greek participants, the course will spotlight the many intermediaries, including the Mongols, Arabs, Indians, and Persians. Our approach will employ different kinds of primary evidence – ranging from archaeological artifacts to early modern business letters – to inquire how the use of diverse sources can contribute to the scholarly reconstruction of an early globalizing world. While learning about these topics, students will gain an understanding of the practice of history, especially how historians reconstruct and interpret the past.