preview

What Is Millward's View On The Silk Road

Decent Essays

From the view point of author James A. Millward, The Silk Road was more than caravans and tents, it was an ancient form of globalization, and it was more than just a one lane road. Millward brings up three points that solidify his point of view. Idea one is, "Yet the idea of the Silk Road-or silk roads-has come to mean many things beyond brocades and caravans, and in its broadest concept...it stands for the idea that humanity has thrived most when connected across its far-flung habits by the exchange of goods, ideas, art, and people." (Millward pg. 2) This brings to light the ideas that the Silk Road was more than just a one lane path of which silk fabric and pasta was traded along. Later in that same section Millward talks about when Hillary …show more content…

To say what lies or does not lie along it depends on how one approaches silk road history geographically and chronologically." (Millward pg. 3) Personally I like that comparison because as Americans, and well most of the first world we tend to see routes as A to Z only not seeing that J or V could also get you to Z. The idea of everywhere leading to another destination along the network of roads is also strengthened later in the book, When Millward states “"...not one road but rather a skein of routes linking many entrepots. Historians think of the silk road more as a network than as a linear route; to map it simply by drawing a couple of horizontal lines across the center of Eurasia and the Indian ocean, as textbooks tend to do gives a false impression." (Millward pg. …show more content…

Trautmann in his book, India: Brief History of a Civilization. Much like Millward, Trautmann’s thesis on the Silk Road is “we could say that civilizations cast a penumbra beyond them, like the half-shadow around an eclipsed moon or sun. It is a useful metaphor by which to think about the wider world beyond India proper, that was affected by India and that bears durable marks of its influences." (Trautmann pg. 128) The culture of India was impacted by the trading of the Silk Road, common Indian jewelry contained gold and red coral of which came from the Mediterranean as it was the only place the coral of that hue could be found. In exchange they received gemstones, pearls, ivory, steel sword blades, bronze vessels, and textiles. Textiles from India have been found in numerous countries including Egypt where an Indian block-print cotton fabric from Gujarat dating about the 11th century was found (pg. 139) Not only were material objects traded on the Silk Road but so were ideas and languages, "with Indian religions came the study of Sanskrit and Pali & the formations of scripts based on Indian ones, scripts that continue today in Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia."(pg. 136) It is seen that Buddhism and Hinduism, both polytheistic religions show many commonalities besides the worshipping of multiple higher entities. Also evident along other portions of the Silk Road, are Indian forms of Astronomy, calendar making and time

Get Access