The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Global history is an approach to history that emphasizes the interconnectedness of the world. Global history thus focuses less on individual civilizations or regions than on how processes and patterns such as trade, imperialism, and religion have shaped the world as a whole. In the last few generations, more and more scholars have cautioned against Eurocentrism, a worldview that frames Europe as “the primary engine and architect of world history, the bearer of universal values and reason, and the pinnacle and therefore model of progress and development” (Sundberg, J. “Eurocentrism.” International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, edited by Rob Kitchin and Nigel Thrift, Elsevier, 2009, p. 638). In attributing the major historical, intellectual, and cultural developments of the past to Europe and European societies, Eurocentric narratives take for granted Europe’s superiority and thus tend to marginalize the contributions of non-European societies. Eurocentrism has been criticized for perpetuating biases connected with imperialism, colonialism, and racism, as well as for propagating a distorted narrative of global history.

Eurocentrism is usually traced to the European “Age of Discovery” that began in earnest at the end of the 15th century. Frankopan himself explains how the European powers began to “reinvent the past” as their global influence grew as a result of colonialism, noting:

The demise of the old imperial capital presented an unmistakable opportunity for the legacy of ancient Greece and Rome to be claimed by new adoptive heirs—something that was done with gusto. In truth, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal and England had nothing to do with Athens and the world of the ancient Greeks, and were largely peripheral in the history of Rome from its earliest days to its demise. […] So although scholars have long called this period the Renaissance, this was no rebirth. Rather, it was a Naissance—a birth. For the first time in history, Europe lay at the heart of the world (213).

In other words, the Eurocentric narrative, which at least in the West would become the standard and “accepted and lazy history of civilisation” (xiii), should be understood as little more than a fiction. In his approach to global history, on the other hand, Frankopan seeks to reject Eurocentrism and focus instead on the role played by Eastern civilizations, especially the civilizations of Central Asia and Mesopotamia, in shaping cultural and commercial exchange throughout history. To frame his global history, Frankopan turns to the Silk Roads, the trade routes that flowed from East Asia through the Eurasian steppes, Central Asia, and Mesopotamia until they reached Europe and the Mediterranean, bringing luxury goods (such as silk) but also ideas, technology, and art. In contrast with the Eurocentric narrative, Frankopan suggests that the powers of Central Asia and Mesopotamia, geographically positioned at the crossroads of the Silk Roads, were much more central in global history, and that it was not until the voyages of Columbus and da Gama in the 1490s that Europe would become “the centre of the world” (196). In seeking to put forward an alternative to old Eurocentric narratives, Frankopan’s book becomes, as one reviewer has put it, a “different version of history” (Thubron, Colin. “A Different Vision of History.” The New York Review, 21 April 2016).