The Silk Roads

Drawing on a rich series of sources in Greek, Latin, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Russian, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew, Syriac and Chinese, The Silk Roads provides a major re-assessment of world history from antiquity to the modern day.

The region of the Silk Roads is obscure to many in the English-speaking world. Yet the region linking East with West is where civilization itself began, where the world's great religions were born and took root, where goods were exchanged, and where languages, ideas and disease spread.

The Silk Roads were no exotic series of connections, but networks that linked continents and oceans together. They were - and still are - the world's central nervous system. This is where empires were won - and where they were lost. As a new era emerges, the patterns of exchange are mirroring those that have criss-crossed Asia for millennia. The Silk Roads are rising again.

Sunday Times Non-Fiction #1 Bestseller
The Times Non-Fiction #1 Bestseller
Evening Standard #1 Non-Fiction Bestseller
China #1 Non-Fiction Bestseller
China #1 Bestseller (All genres)
Asian Age (India) # 1 Non-Fiction Bestseller
Het Parool (Netherlands) Top 5 Bestseller
New York Times Top 10 Bestseller
Washington Post Top 10 Bestseller
Der Spiegel (Germany) Bestseller

Waterstones, Paperbacks of the Year 2016
Blackwell's, Paperbacks of the Year
TLS, Books of the Year 2016
Bloomberg, Books of the Year 2016
Australian National Radio Books of the Year 2016
Foreign Policy, Books of the Year 2016
Guardian, Publishers' Books of the Year 2016

Guardian/Observer, Books of the Year 2015
Sunday Times, The Year's Finest Books 2015
The Times, Books of the Year 2015
Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year 2015
Bloomberg Business, Best Books of 2015
TLS, Books of the Year 2015
History Today, Books of the Year 2015
The Times, Writers' Top Picks of 2015
The Bookseller Most Selected Books of 2015
Daunt Books, Non-Fiction Books of the Year 2015
Prosper, Must-Read Business Books of 2015

Le Point, Palmarès de 2017
Guardian, Scientists' Books of the Year 2017
L'Histoire, Books of the Year 2018

In 2023, The Folio Society produced a limited edition of The Silk Roads.The lavishly illustrated and beautifully edition is published in two volumes is available to buy here

Amalia Zordan

'Magnificent, erudite and gripping.'
'Essential reading'

'We have been dreaming of a history of the world'. Here it finally is.
'Breathtaking'

Arne Dvegsdal

'Fantastic...fascinating...stimulating...exciting'

'Completely addictive'

Antoine Courban

'Astonishing breadth of vision'
'Captivating...it forces us to think about history in a different way. Unputdownable'

Francesco Musolino

'Sensational'

Guri Hjeltnes

'Frankopan lifts the past so that it stands alive in front of us'
'Full of surprising details and perspectives. Essential for anyone interested in history and geography over the centuries.'

François d'Alençon

'Frankopan expands perspectives as he spans centuries, continents and cultures'
'A glorious epic'

François-Guillaume Lorrain

Peter's book will means that 'France is going to discover the joys of connected history'
'An treasure trove of curiosities...which will change perspectives.'

'Breathtaking....the narrative reorients one’s geopolitical compass as power again shifts to the east'

'A masterpiece....dazzling'

Robert Gegvold

'Arresting....compelling....One comes away from this book convinced that the multidimensional history of the silk roads deserves a central place in an understanding of the roots of the modern world.

Arno Widmann

'Not only the most important history book written in years years; the most important in decades'

'Anyone who wants to understand the world must read Frankopan'

Stefan Weidner

'As well as being a highly gifted writer and a wonderful historian, Frankopan is also extremely courageous.'
'This is an instant classic, all but a masterpiece'

Thomas Schmid

'Monumental and bold. It is impossible to do justice to the exhilarating, rich ride through the centuries.'
'This is a book that opens ones eyes'

Sadanand Dhume

'Frankopan shows that even in ancient times trade and culture bound distant people together....One of [his] gifts is the ability to draw unusual connections across his vast canvas...
'A rare book that makes you question your assumptions about the world.'

Colin Thubron

'This is deeply researched popular history at its most invigorating'
'The sheer abundance of Frankopan’s information can become an omnivorous pleasure, and its details add color and particularity....to his text'
'It is a brave, subtly personal project of inspiring ambition and epic scope, full of unexpected connections.'

'Drawing on prodigious sources...Frankopan weaves together his many narrative strands with verve and impressive scholarship....A vastly rich historical tapestry that puts ongoing struggles in a new perspective'

Henry Porter

'Monumental…prodigious…astonishing. Frankopan is an exhilarating companion for the journey along the routes which conveyed silk, slaves, ideas, religion, and disease, and around which today may hang the destiny of the world’

'Breathtaking and addictively readable'

History Book of the Year 2015

Gerard de Groot

'Immensely entertaining'

'Many books have been written which claim to be a New History of the World. This one fully deserves the title.'
'It is difficult...to do justice to a book so ambitious, so detailed and so fascinating'

William Dalrymple

'Fearless and brilliant'
'This is history on a grand scale, with a sweep and ambition that is rare'

Bettany Hughes

'Splendid...tightly researched history'
'Invigorating and profound book has enough storytelling to excite the reader and enough fresh scholarship to satisfy the intellect' 'Epic...charismatic and essential'

Jayant Kher

'Dazzling, provocative and unusually interesting'

'Perhaps the only scholar historian in his class attempting to reshape world history'

'Brilliant threads....this is, to put it mildly, an ambitious book'
'Bold... a history of the world that shunts the centre of gravity eastward'
'Frankopan writes with clarity and memorable detail'

Justin Marozzi

'Magnificent...swashbuckling...re-balances fundamentally our traditional understanding of history'
'This is full-blooded history written with verve and precision'

William Dalrymple

'A remarkable book on many levels, and one that anyone would have been proud to write: a proper historical epic of dazzling range, ambition and achievement'

Mark Thomas

'Enticing, often enchanting....written very gracefully and eruditely indeed'
'Frankopan [writes[ about an exceptionally, eclectically, eccentrically wide range of subjects...'

Sinclair McKay

'Breathtaking'
'Inverts received wisdom'
'Superb history charts mankind’s flirtation with global disaster'

Philip Seib

'Superb...'Peter Frankopan is an exceptional storyteller'
'Frankopan’s book will be indispensable to anyone who wants to make sense of this union of past and present'

'A Herodotus of the 21st century'

'Lives up to its claim to be a new history of the world because of its geopolitical paradigm shift....The Silk Roads is a fascinating read, written with flair and the result of serious scholarship

(South Africa) Helen Moffett

Frankopan's 'wide-ranging and fascinating account of these alternative histories changes the way we see the world'

'Essential in shifting Eurocentric views – and also a thumping good read'

'Dazzlingly rich and accessible'
'A startling and brilliant perspective on events that may once have been familiar - and plenty that aren't.'

'A dazzling piece of historical writing'
'A beautifully constructed web of anecdotes and insights, backed up by an impressively wide-ranging scholarly apparatus of footnotes drawing on works in multiple languages'

Srinath Ragavan

'Majestic...captivating...'
'With extraordinary erudition and a vivid style, [Frankopan] takes us on a dazzling tour....drawing on a breathtaking range of sources'

William Dalrymple

'[An] epic study....a book of dazzling range and ambition'

Robert Irwin

'Rethinks world history and to relocate the central developments in that history some way east of Europe...[making] bold connections are made between divergent cultures...based on astonishingly wide and deep reading and in all areas draws on the latest research...full of vivid and recondite details'

Vikas Datta

'Meticulously-arranged but always interesting...there is much to inform and illuminate, and patterns we may have never suspected are revealed....Masterful and engrossing'

'Absorbing...well researched and gracefully written'

'A fascinating history of the world driven by a narrative connected by a convincing theme: the influence of the great Asian long-distance land routes...World history on a grand scale'
'A scintillating read....'

Dan Jones

'Dazzlingly good'

'[Frankopan] blends deep scholarly skill with a real literary talent'

Averil Cameron

''Beautifully constructed, a terrific and exhilarating read and a new perspective on world history'.
History Today, Books of the Year

John Stepek

'Frankopan handles his material deftly and has an eye for telling details...a clear theme is that globalisation is not a new phenomenon...This is essential reading.'

Tanjil Rashid

'A magnificent book to reorient our maps - and our minds'

'The best account of Central Asia's intellectual legacy we have'

Peter Gordon

'Frankopan has recast world history—culture, politics, religion, economics—as both a single consistent narrative and one that is not centered around the development of Western civilization.'

'If one had to choose an up-to-date volume from which to glean an overview of world history, this might well be it.'

Rajiv Shirali

'Oxford historian captures a fascinating world history...Well-timed...[written] with great panache.'

'Frankopan's research is impeccable...There are a myriad themes and threads, each a fit subject for a book [makes the book] exhilarating roller-coaster ride.'

Matthew Price

'Exhilarating...plenty of bang for your buck.'
'Here is a work for our networked age...a bracing wake up call.'

Lucy Inglis

'Almost all historians hope to offer their readers a different view but few historians could, and perhaps fewer still would, dare to write a new history of the world. Peter Frankopan...began as a young man with a map and has done what he set out to do.'

'At a time when the Chinese, under their 'one belt one road' policy are building a new Silk Road to the Mediterranean, this is essential reading'

'Most Notable Business Books' of 2015

Rolf Brockschmidt

'Frankopan is not only an outstanding historian who has worked on a vast array of sources, but also a gifted narrator'. 'A wake-up call...and crucial to understand the future.'

Ingela Wiman

Silk Roads 'challenges the narrow-minded, Eurocentric views of history'
'Well-written, entertaining, disturbing and exciting as a detective story'
'Peter Frankopan is an exceptional historian'

'a breath-taking and addictively readable study...that inverts received wisdom'

'A compelling political, economic and social history that is as much about how we will live as how we once did...a fascinating tome' (World Travel Guide - Top Holiday Reads)
'Full of intriguing insights and fascinating details' (Observer)
'The author's gift for vividness is reminiscent of Jan Morris, while his command of revealing facts or fancies is not far short of Gibbon's' (Literary Review)
'Bold and ambitious' (Tablet)
'Timely. it deserves a place by the library fireplace' (Country Life)
'It's the details that win it. Did you know that Attila's Huns wore coats made from mouse skin? '(Sunday Express)

Chinese edition

Spanish edition

German edition

Dutch edition

Further foreign language editions of The Silk Roads will appear in 2017 and 2018

Best Holiday Reads 2015

'Magnificent' Best Holiday reads Summer 2016

'100 Brilliant Things to Do', Summer 2015

'The time is ripe for this new history of the world, which places the emphasis firmly on the East, from eastern Europe to India and China. A journey along the Silk Road, from the birth of the world’s ancient religions to contemporary international politics.' Daily Telegraph, June 2015