The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World

Description

“All roads used to lead to Rome. Today they lead to Beijing.” So argues Peter Frankopan in this revelatory new book.

When The Silk Roads was published in 2015, it became an instant classic. A major reassessment of world history, it compelled us to look at the past from a different perspective. The New Silk Roads brings this story up to date, addressing the present and future of a world that is changing dramatically.

Following the Silk Roads eastwards, from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, The New Silk Roads provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected. In an age of Brexit and Trump, the themes of isolation and fragmentation permeating the western world stand in sharp contrast to events along the Silk Roads since 2015, where ties have been strengthened and mutual cooperation established. With brilliant insight, Peter Frankopan takes a fresh look at the network of relationships being formed along the length and breadth of the Silk Roads today, assessing the global reverberations of these continual shifts in the centre of power – all too often absent from headlines in the West.

This important – and ultimately hopeful – book asks us to reread who we are and where we are in the world, illuminating the themes on which all our lives and livelihoods depend.

Reviews

“Provocative reading for students of geopolitical and economic trends looking for a glimpse at the new world to come.” —Kirkus

“Masterly mapping out of a new world order. . . . Peter Frankopan has gone up in the world since his bestselling Silk Roads history was published to great acclaim in 2015—and deservedly so.” —Justin Marozzi, Evening Standard
 
“Frankopan has written another valuable and idiosyncratic book. He has the gift of perspective—the capacity to see the wood for the trees—which he combines with a Tolstoyan knack for weaving little details into the broader sweep of human affairs.” —Jamie Susskind, The Daily Telegraph
   
“Frankopan is a brilliant guide to terra incognita.” —Niall Ferguson, Sunday Times
 
“A pacy, bang-up-to-date exploration of how China’s commercial and political heft is changing the way the world works.” —James Kynge, Financial Times
 
“Frankopan has written as prescient a modern history as possible . . . . [His] skill is that he able to step back a few more paces from the world map and global events than most modern commentators, whilst encouraging us to use history as a way of looking forward than regressing into the past.” —Joseph Wilkins, Total Politics
 
“A compelling, accessible account of the shift in global economic power. . . . For anyone with an interest in global politics.” —Nicole Abedee, Financial Review

Author Biography

Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University where he is also Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College and Director at the Centre for Byzantine Research. He was Schiff Scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge, and Senior Scholar at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He has been Stanley J. Seeger Fellow at Princeton, Scaliger Visiting Professor at Leiden and Presidential Scholar at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. His revised translation of The Alexiad by Anna Komnene was published by Penguin Classics in 2009. He is the author of The First Crusade: The Call from the East (2012) and The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (2015).