"Shadow of the Silk Road records a journey along the greatest land route on earth. Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran and into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron covers some seven thousand miles in eight months. Making his way by local bus, truck, car, donkey cart and camel, he travels from the tomb of the Yellow Emperor, the mythic progenitor of the Chinese people, to the ancient...

"Our world was made on and by the Silk Roads. For millennia it was here that East and West encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas and cultures, the birth of the world's great religions, the appetites for foreign goods that drove economies and the growth of nations. From the first cities in Mesopotamia to the growth of Greece and Rome to the depredations by the Mongols and the Black Death to the Great Game...

The place is ancient Egypt. You need lumber to build a house. No trees grow in Egypts desert, but a ship from Lebanon regularly brings cedar logs to a nearby port. How do you get lumber for your house? You take many bundles of papyrus and a sack of frankincense to the port and offer them to the ships captain in exchange for his logs. The captain knows he can sell your goods back home at a profit. You bargain, but in the end, he takes your goods, and...

"Follow an epic story of the Viking Age that traces the historical trail of an ancient piece of jewelry found in a Viking grave in England to its origins thousands of miles east in India. An acclaimed bioarchaeologist, Catrine Jarman has used cutting-edge forensic techniques to spark her investigation into the history of the Vikings who came to rest in British soil. By examining teeth that are now over one thousand years old, she can determine childhood...

Explores the trade routes followed by Native Americans, trappers, and traders between the late sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, looks at the types of goods traded, and includes illustrations, photographs, and maps.

Examines the opening and development of the silk route and the effects of trade between the East and the West.

Discusses the history of encounters between East and West over the Silk and Spice Routes and how these affected cultures and civilizations for centuries.

Traces the history of the following trade and travel routes: the Mohawk Trail, the Wilderness Road and Other Trans-Appalachian Routes, the Mississippi Route, The Santa Fe Trail and the Chihuahua Trail, The Oregon Trail and the California Trail.