The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction
Published online:
24 September 2013
Published in print:
26 April 2013
Online ISBN:
9780199365883
Print ISBN:
9780199782864
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Cite
'References', The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions (New York , 2013; online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 Sept. 2013), https://doi.org/, accessed 28 Apr. 2025.
Chapter 1: Environment and empires
Ferdinand von Richthofen and first uses of “silk road”:
http://silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/vol5num1/
Ecological zones of Central Eurasia: 
Denis
Sinor, ed., “The Geographic Setting,” in The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 19–38.
Ibn Khaldun's theory:
Gibbon's comments on character of Scythians and Tatars is in chap. 26 of his work:
Also available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/732/732-h/732-h.htm.
On the socio-political organization of pastoral nomadic peoples: 
Perspectives,”
Joseph
Fletcher, “The Mongols: Ecological and Social (page 123)p. 123
Perspectives,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
46:1 (June 1986): 11–50.Sima Qian on the Xiongnu:
Ammianus Marcellinus on the Huns:
Nicola Di Cosmo's argument regarding the Great Wall and nomad-type states: “the first cry” quoted from 23.
Nicola
Di Cosmo, Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002);Nicola
Di Cosmo, “State Formation and Periodization in Inner Asian History,” Journal of World History
10, no. 1 (1999): 1–40;Chapter 2: Eras of silk road fluorescence
“In our country there are no towns and no cultivated land …”:
Nomad migrations and correlations between eastern and western history:
Genghis Khan launching the Renaissance and comparison to Jesus: The Harper's review of that book states “it's hard to think of anyone else who rose from such inauspicious beginnings to something so awesome, except maybe Jesus.”
Qing and Russian Empires as Mongol successor states:
(page 124)p. 124Chapter 3: The biological silk road
Long-term trans-Eurasian exchange:
William of Rubruck on “cosmos” (kumis):
The
Journey of William of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the World, 1253–55, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian de Carpine, trans. and ed. with an introductory notice by William Woodville Rockhill (London: Hakluyt Society, 1900);Lactose intolerance/lactase persistence and Central Eurasians: “Got Lactase?” (2007), Understanding Evolution website, http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/070401_lactose;
Catherine
J. E. Ingram, Charlotte A. Mulcare, Yuval Itan, Mark G. Thomas, and Dallas M. Swallow, “Lactose digestion and the Evolutionary Genetics of Lactase Persistence,” Human Genetics
124, no. 6 (Jan. 2009): 579–91;Wang
YG, Yan YS, Xu JJ, Du RF, S. D. Flatz, W. Kühnau, and G. Flatz, “Prevalence of Primary Adult Lactose Malabsorption in Three Populations of Northern China,” Human Genetics
67, no. 1 (1984): 103–6.Interbreeding of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals: Ker Than, “Neanderthals, Humans Interbred—First Solid DNA Evidence,” published by the National Geographic Society, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100506-science-neanderthals-humans-mated-interbred-dna-gene/; http://www.eva.mpg.de/neandertal/press/presskit-neandertal/pdf/Science_Green.pdf.
R.
E. Green, J. Krause, A. W. Briggs, et al., “A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome,” Science
328, no. 5979 (May 2010): 710–22,DNA studies of silk road migrations: published by The Royal Society, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4142653; Peter Forster, “Ice Ages and the Mitochondrial DNA Chronology of Human Dispersals: A Review,” in “The Evolutionary Legacy of (page 125)p. 125the Ice Ages (Feb. 29, 2004): 255–64, special issue, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4142177, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, 359, no. 1442.
C.
Lalueza-Fox, M. L. Sampietro, M. T. P. Gilbert, L. Castri, F. Facchini, D. Pettener, J. Bertranpetit, “Unravelling Migrations in the Steppe: Mitochondrial DNA Sequences from Ancient Central Asians,” in Proceedings: Biological Sciences
, vol. 271, no. 1542 (May 7, 2004): 941–47,the Ice Ages (Feb. 29, 2004): 255–64, special issue, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4142177, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, 359, no. 1442.Mongol genetic marker on the Y chromosome:
Tatiana
Zerjal, Xue Yali; Giorgio Bertorelle, R. Spencer Wells; Bao Weidong; Zhu Suling, Raheel Qamar, Qasim Ayub, Aisha Mohyuddin, Fu Songbin, Li Pu, Nadira Yuldasheva, Ruslan Ruzibakiev, Xu Jiujin, Shu Quangfang, Du Ruofu, Yang Huangming, Matthew E. Hurles, and Elizabeth Robinson, “The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols,” American Journal of Human Genetics
72, no. 3 (Mar. 2003): 717–22.Mongols and plague: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/health/01plague.html; http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v42/n12/full/ng.705.html.
George
D. Sussman, “Was the Black Death in India and China?” Bulletin of the History of Medicine
85, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 319–55;Giovanna
Morelli et al., “Yersina Pestis Genome Sequencing Identifies Patterns of Global Phylogenetic Diversity,” Nature Genetics
42 (2010): 1140–43,Horse domestication:
Zhang Qian on blood-sweating horses: Sima Qian, Shiji (Records of the Historian), ch. 123, “Dayuan liezhuan”; translation in
Polo match in the Shahnamah:
Schumpeter's theory of imperialism:
Alcoholic beverages in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia: “Beer” (vol. 1), “Wine” and “Intoxication” (vol. 2), in Anthropology 39, no. 3 (June 1998): 297–322;
Alexander
H. Joffe, “Alcohol and Social Complexity in Ancient Western Asia,” Current (page 126)p. 126Anthropology 39, no. 3 (June 1998): 297–322;Herodotus on wine among Persians and Scythians: on Persian deliberations and 4:70 on Scythians drinking wine with blood.
Strabo on wine in Central Eurasia:
Grapes and wine in China:
Lü Guang in Kucha: Li Fang, Taiping yulan, 125:604 as cited in Shiliuguo chunqiu and in Éric Trombert, On Ikeda, and
Xuanzang … at the Western Turk Yabghu's camp: Huili, Datang daciensi Sanzang fashi chuan, j. 2. Taisho Tripitaka vol. 50, no. 2053 (CBETA Chinese Electronic Tripitaka V1.29, Normalized Version, T50n2053_p0227b14-T50n2053_p0227b15).
“Fine grape wine, a jade cup gleaming in the moonlight”: My translation of Wang Han's Liangzhou ci, cf.
Wine consumption in China today: “China becomes biggest export market for Bordeaux wine outside EU,” Telegraph Mar. 11, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/wine/7423067/China-becomes-biggest-export-market-for-bordeaux-wine-outside-EU.html#.’ http://www.streetdirectory.com/food_editorials/beverages/wine/china_and_the_world_wine_market.html; Syrah Suen, “China's Wine Consumption Expected to Boom in 2010” China wine online, http://www.winechina.com/en/read.asp?id=2010011414.
Lucy Evans, “China and the World Wine Market,” Food Editorials.com (2010),
“Wine-ode” of Ibn al-Fārid: Ibn al-Farid, trans. and intro. by
(page 127)p. 127Hafiz, “Hair disheveled”: I have used the translation of ghazal 26 (Qazvini-Ghani enumeration) by for clarity, I made one slight change in the translation with reference to the nineteenth-century translation by H. Wilberforce Clarke (who numbers this ghazal 44), replacing Saberi's “narcissus” with “eye” as used by Clarke and other translators.
Silver drinks fountain in the Mongol court:
introduction and further annotation by Daniel Waugh, Silk Road Seattle, sec. 15, http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/rubruck.html.
Trans-Eurasian crop exchanges:
Thomas
T. Allsen, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001);Dumplings:
Josh Wilson with Andrei Nesterov, “Pelmeni: A Tasty History,” Newsletter of SRAS (School of Russian and Asian Studies) Jan. 10, 2010, http://www.sras.org/news2.php?m=287.
Chapter 4: The technological silk road
The chair and cane sugar:
“Trans-ecological” and “trans-civilizational” trade: “Silk Roads of Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History,” in
David
Christian, (page 128)p. 128“Silk Roads of Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History,” in Realms of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern
, Silk Road Studies 4, ed. David Christian and Craig Benjamin (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2000), 67–94.Classical references to silk: Virgil, Georgics 2:120–120; Strabo, Geography 15.1.21; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6.20, trans. from Pliny the Elder; Lucan, Pharsalia, 10.141,
Seneca, De Beneficiis 7.9, trans. from Southern Literary Messenger 2, no. 1 (Dec. 1835): 355. All classical texts and some translations available online at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
“Sons of poor families”: Sima Qian, Shiji, bk. 123,
Mughal trade of textiles for horses:
Scott
Levi, “India, Russia and the Eighteenth-Century Transformation of the Central Asian Caravan Trade,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
42 no. 4 (1999): 519–48.Paper and printing in China and Islamic world:
http://www.silk-road.com/newsletter/vol3num2/5_bloom.php.
Chinese background for the European invention of typography: Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin in Science and Civilisation in China, ed.
Eurasian medical tradition and humoral theory: Assessments, no. 41 (Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Sept. 2001), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK33781;
Thomas
Allsen, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia
, chap. 16, “Medicine” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 141–61;Mary
Hardy, Ian Coulter, Swamy Venuturupalli, Elizabeth A. Roth, Joya Favreau, Sally C. Morton, and Paul Shekelle, “Appendix A. Ayurveda's History, Beliefs and Practices,” in “Ayurvedic Interventions for Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review,” Report No. 01-E040, Evidence Reports/Technology (page 129)p. 129Assessments, no. 41 (Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Sept. 2001),Donkey meat: “Donkey meat: the most traditional way to get a piece of ass,” People's Daily Online, Mar. 30, 2010, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/6935139.html.
Smallpox:
Nuclear weapons:
Gunpowder:
The chariot:
Edward
L. Shaughnessy, “Historical Perspectives on the Introduction of the Chariot into China” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
48, no. 1 (Jun. 1988): 189–237.Chapter 5: The arts on the silk road
Eurasian story exchanges: Heading essay on Jakata tales in Lawall, ed., The Norton Anthology of Literature (online), Discovery Module 14, “The sharing of narrative materials in the Middle Ages,” http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/worldlit2e/full/discovery_modules/dm14_1.htm;
Walter
Cohen, “Eurasian Fiction,” Global South
1, nos. 1 and 2 (2007): 100–119; I refer to the following stories from the Jātaka: vol. 1 #189, #294, #145; vol. 2 #198, #208, #294.
James
Huntley Grayson, “Rabbit Visits the Dragon Palace: A Korea-Adapted, Buddhist Tale from India,” Fabula
45, no. 1/2 (Berlin: 2004); 69–93;Sarah
(page 130)p. 130Lawall, ed., The Norton Anthology of World Literature
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2002), vol. A.;Lutes: Stephen Blum, “Central Asia,” in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://0-www.oxfordmusiconline.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/05284; Jean During, “Barbat” in Encyclopaedia Iranica (1988), http://www.iranica.com/articles/barbat. J.-Cl. Chabrier, A. Dietrich, C. E. Bosworth, H. G. Farmer, “ʿ’Ūd,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Brill, 2011), http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_COM-1270; print version: vol. 10, 767, col. 2;
http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_COM-0812; print version: vol. 7, 681, col. 1.
Muqam: “China IV: Living Traditions: Northwest China” in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, s.v. “China,” ed. Alan R. Thrasher et al., http://0-www.oxfordmusiconline.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/43141pg4;
Halos: E. H. Ramsden, “The Halo: A Further Enquiry into Its Origin,” Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 78, no. 457 (Apr. 1941): 123–27, 131.
The three hares: “The Three Hares Project,” http://www.chrischapmanphotography.co.uk/hares/index.html; “The Travels of the Three Rabbits: Shared Iconography Across the Silk Road,” IDP News, no. 18 (International Dunhuang Project, Summer 2001), http://idp.bl.uk/archives/news18/idpnews_18.a4d.
(page 131)p. 131Persian miniatures:
Sheila Blair, “East Meets West Under the Mongols,” http://www.silk-road.com/newsletter/vol3num2/6_blair.php;
J. P. Losty et al., “Indian subcontinent,” in Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T040113pg20.
Blue-and-white ware:
William R. Sargent, “Blue-and-white ceramic,” in Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, http://0-www.oxfordartonline.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T009347.
Chapter 6: Whither the silk road?
Early modern continuation of the silk road:
Scott
Levi, “India, Russia and the Eighteenth-Century Transformation of the Central Asian Caravan Trade,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
42, no. 4 (1999): 519–48.Kazakh-Qing silk trade in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: The documents referenced are in the No. One Historical Archive in Beijing; discussion in
Zhang Yin's Jiulong company: “China's richest woman: from waste to wealth,” Xinhua via China Daily, Oct. 20, 2006, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-10/20/content_713250.htm.
Hillary Clinton's silk road initiative: “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on India and the United States: A Vision for the 21st Century,” July 20, 2011, Anna Centenary Library, Chennai, India, http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2011/07/20110720165044su0.7134014.html#axzz1SiHYG012.
Iranian, Pakistani, and Chinese political use of the “silk road” idea: “Iran, China Urge Stronger Ties.” PressTV, Aug. 20, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194884.html; “Sino-pak Ties: ‘Silk Road Will Be Fully Revived,” Express Tribune, Sept. 3, 2011, (page 132)p. 132http://tribune.com.pk/story/243971/sino-pak-ties-silk-road-will-be-fully-revived/; Li Xiguang, “Fuxing sichou zhi lu, dapo meiguo weidu” (Revive the silk road, smash American containment), Huanqiu shibao, Nov. 28, 2011, http://opinion.huanqiu.com/roll/2011-11/2214092.html.
“Silk-road inspired regional American cuisine”: from the website of the restaurant Mie N Yu, http://www.mienyu.com/information.cfm.
Silk road in fashion: Hilary Alexander, “Oscar de la Renta autumn/winter 2011 at New York Fashion Week.” Telegraph, Feb. 16, 2011, http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/columns/hilary-alexander/TMG8329386/Oscar-de-la-Renta-autumnwinter-2011-at-New-York-Fashion-Week.html; “Le Metier de Beauté Fall/Winter 2011 Collection: Silk Road,” Temptalia Beauty Blog, http://www.temptalia.com/le-metier-de-beaute-fallwinter-2011-collection-silk-road.
Online silk road marketplace: Adrian Chen, “The Underground Website Where You Can Buy Any Drug Imaginable,” Gawker, June 6, 2011, http://gawker.com/5805928/the-underground-website-where-you-can-buy-any-drug-imaginable.
