The Silk Roads was two books in one. One book was a fascinating re-writing of world history to anchor it at the centre of the world, essentially Persia and surrounding countries. The other was a diatribe against Western policy in the region during the twentieth century, and a bit beforehand. Besides finding the second part a little simplistic, I was more frustrated by the dissonance. I started with history and ended with a political polemic.
Starting with part one, Frankopan anchors history in the centre of the world by describing how it was at the epicentre of the great trade routes of history. He narrates the trades in silk, furs, horses, slaves, gold, silver, oil and wheat that have for millenia criss-crossed the centre of the world. It was also the route by which ideas, religions and technologies spread from East to West and vice versa.
Frankopan explains Britain’s involvement in the Entente Cordiale in the context of its struggle with Russia for the centre of the world. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, an expanding Russia was threatening British interests along the length of its southern Asian border from the Near East, through Persia and India, to China. Britain was faced with either entering a continental confrontation with Russia or allying with it. Choosing the latter path secured the Empire in Asia but lured Britain into the Franco-Russian confrontation with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
And it is the Great War that is something of the junction in the story where we go from history to polemic. The West’s involvement in the region, particularly Persia and, more recently, Iraq / Afghanistan is support for his contention that this is the centre of the world. But it is no longer narrated primarily to illustrate this. Instead, it is an attack, from the vantage point of the internationalist left, on Western policy. He wishes for the West to be held to account and craves that it be superseded. It might be right but the moralising was dissonant.
Staying with the present, Frankopan’s book resonates with the recent Chinese policy announcement of developing a silk road belt. But the Chinese also announced the creation of a maritime silk road, on which Frankopan touched less. It would intriguing to know, historically, where the balance lay between the maritime and road trades. An uninformed assumption would be that they inversely correlated. When the land route was dangerous and difficult, trade would revert to the sea and vice versa.
Finally, the book appeared before the Q4 2014 sell-off in oil and energy. Less than a couple of years on, we cannot know whether this is epochal or passing. In the former camp are those who say that US oil independence frees them from future intervention in the Gulf. I have always been a bit sceptical of this. After all, if oil prices do rise again, then regardless of US self-sufficiency, the US economy would be affected. Regardless, other, particularly Asian, powers are not self-sufficient so will presumably have to intervene.
The Oblique View 