Life along the Silk Road By Susan Whitfield (Report)

Susan Whitfield – Life along the Silk Road
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Susan Whitfield – Life along the Silk Road
Susan Whitfield, in her book – Life along the Silk Road, offers a healthy history of the Silk Road. It can be highly recommended for individuals interested in history. It narrates the story of the lives of the persons who occupied the Silk Road in different periods. Susan writes narrates the history of the experiences from a first-person perspective. The place referred to in the book matches to the current day eastern Uzbekistan. Currently, the place is hugely occupied by Turkic peoples, particularly the Uighur, and the Chinese colonists. The place is also comparatively Islamic. According to the book, the place was Indo-European in character – more of a Buddhist. It was also hugely cosmopolitan, with a lot of cities and towns to the Chinese, Mongolians among others (Miller, 2017).
The main genesis of all this information for the writing and most of the scholarships as pertains to the area and era evolves from the more than forty thousand documents revealed in a Buddhist cave complex located outside Dunhuang. Covered up in the 11th century, it was accidentally uncovered in the year 1900. Despite the fact that a lot of the special paintings and sculptures can be seen, a new research has evolved around the documents. In spite of the many Buddhist presences, any written piece was regarded as null and void. It was immediately destroyed. The Buddhist writings were seen as a blasphemy. On the other hand, the non-Buddhist writings were seen as precious and assumed mostly to provide an honest light of the daily life’s experiences. People believed every bit of it and was respected. They were thus, protected (Whitfield, et.al., 2015).
The first chapter takes the reader back to the second century and assists the reader to comprehend the events which happened which by the mid of the eighth century when the silk road was at its peak. The same chapter equips the learner with the knowledge of the many paths within the silk road and the other paths that traded along it. Apart from silk, salt, jade, horses, and wool traded along the path. The 3000 miles distance covered by the traders provided a challenge to the traders. However, by the end of the 10th century, the Silk road exchange became much of maritime in nature (Howard, et.al., 2016).
The introduction chapter is subsequent to when Susan narrates the story of the ten individuals. She articulately mixes up both the archaeological and textual information with her own thinking so to depict the characters and their families to elaborate the activities in which they got involved or which they saw. Besides, she notes their feelings, thoughts and reactions. Every story provides knowledge on the typical life that includes material details such as of clothing, ...