Evocative and enigmatic, the Silk Road occupies a unique place in contemporary culture and international affairs. Across the world, it has captured the imagination as a story of camel caravans crossing desert and mountain, of precious goods moving between East and West, and of ideas, religions and technologies migrating across land and sea. But what exactly is the Silk Road? And as China seeks to “revive” the Silk Roads - maritime and overland - for the twenty-first century, why does this compelling, yet poorly understood, narrative of history now serve as a platform for building trade, diplomatic, infrastructure and geopolitical connections?
The Silk Road: Connecting Histories and Futures is the first book to critically investigate this fabled geocultural narrative of history, and map out the role it plays in international affairs. This lecture will trace its rise to global fame as a domain of scholarship and foreign policy, a celebration of peace and internationalism, and the ways it created dreams of exploration and grand adventure. China’s Health Silk Road and civilizational futures are among the themes discussed that open up the Silk Roads as a space for critical enquiry.
The talk introduces the book’s new reading of this increasingly important concept, and discusses why greater attention needs to be given to geocultural politics today.