The Silk Road

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

The silk road (or silk roads) is a term used to describe routes used by travelers, merchants, monks and others across the Eurasian continent, or by sea between Asia and the Mediterranean basin. More broadly, however, the notion of "silk road" encompasses the long term trans-Eurasian exchange of goods, crops, art, ideas, religion and other things, starting from when humans first fanned out across the old world. The question at the center of this course, then, will be "what has been the nature of trans-Eurasian exchanges, and what has been their historical impact?" In investigating this question, we will learn something about the basic dynamics and high points of Central Asian history, and tune in at various points to the history of China, India, the Islamic world, Russia and Mediterranean Europe. The course will be mainly discussion format, and students will develop and present research projects focused on one of the things exchanged cross the silk roads, for example, a disease, a precious material, a religion, or a technology.