Silk Road Encyclopedia

Ever since childhood, I have, like a lot of other people, been fascinated by the long string of linked markets stretching across Central Asia that ultimately brought Chinese and other East Asian goods to the West: camel caravans plodding across the deserts, laden with paper, spices, artistic ideas and, of course, silk, via Samarkand and other semi-legendary cities, and ultimately on to Europe. I was therefore absolutely delighted to be offered this enormous book for review. My enthusiasm was somewhat dampened when I opened it at random to find a whole-page entry on Buenos Aires, giving a brief history of...