Trotsky, Leon, here
Troy, here
True Cross, here, here, here
and crusaders’ oaths, here
Truman, Harry S., here
Tudeh party, here, here
Ṭughril Beg, here
Tula, here
tulips, here
Tunis, here
Tunisia, here
Turfan, here
Turkey Company, here
Turkish Petroleum Company, here, here
Türks, here, here, here, here, here
Turner, Admiral Stansfield, here
Tver, here
Tyre, here, here, here
U-boats, here
U-2 spy planes, here
Udaipur, here
Uighur language, here
Uighurs, here, here, here, here
Ukāẓ, here
Ukraine
chernozem (‘dark earth’), here
and Nazi invasion, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
pro-Russian insurgency, here, here
and Russia’s use of energy weapon, here
Umm Qasr, here
umma, here, here, here
United Arab Republic, here
United States
arms to Iran scandal, here
commercial rivalry with Britain, here
Declaration of Independence, here
entry into Second World War, here
First World War aims, here
hostage crisis, here
inflow of European money, here
intelligence cooperation with China, here
oil supplies, here, here, here, here
reduction of speed limits, here
rise in national debt, here
and sharing of nuclear technology, here
template for invasion of Soviet Union, here
and Yom Kippur War, here
US Geological Survey, here
university campuses, here
urban development, here
Urban II, Pope, here, here
Urban III, Pope, here
USS Nimitz, here
USS Vincennes, here
Usselincx, Willem, here
Ustinov, Dmitri, here
Uthmān, here
Uzbeks, here
Vahrām (Persian general), here
Valens, Emperor, here
Valerian, Emperor, here
Valuev, Pyotr, here
van der Heist, Bartholomeus, here
Vance, Cyrus, here
Vandals, here
Varangian guard, here
Varennikov, General Valentin, here
Velázquez, Diego, here
Venezuela, here, here, here
Venice, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
and Black Sea trade, here
and competition with Portugal, here
conflict with Pisa, here
decline of, here
economic flourishing, here
and end of Byzantine empire, here
and Hippodrome sculptures, here
plague in, here, here
and slave trade, here, here, here
Verona, here
Vespucci, Amerigo, here
Victoria, Queen, here, here
Vienna, here, here, here
Vietnam, here, here, here
Vietnam War, here
Viking Rus’, here, here, here, here, here
Virgil (and Aeneid), here, here
Virgin Mary, see Mary, mother of Jesus
Visigoths, here, here
vitarka mudra, here
Vittorio Emanuele, King (of Italy), here
Vladimir II Monomakh, Grand Prince (of Kiev), here
Vladimir (ruler of the Rus’), here
Vladimir, here
Vladivostok, here
Voice of America, here
Volga Bulghārs, here, here
Volkswagen, here
Vuillemin, General Joseph, here
Vyshinskii, Andrei, here
Waghenaer, Lucas Janszoon, here
Wall Street Crash, here
Wallace, William, here
Wang Yangming, here
Wangara traders, here
Wannsee Conference, here
war poetry, here
warfare, and emergence of Europe, here
Washington, George, here
Watergate scandal, here
al-Wāthiq, Caliph, here
Wavell, General Archibald, here
weapons sales, here
Weimar Republic, here
Weinberger, Caspar, here, here
Wellington, Duke of, here
Westinghouse Electric Corporation, here
Wilhelm II, Kaiser, here, here, here
William of Rubruck, here, here, here
Willoughby, Sir Hugh, here
Wilson, Lieutenant Arnold, here
Wilson, Congressman Charlie, here
Wilson, Harold, here
Wilson, Woodrow, here, here
Witsen, Nicolaes, here
Wolff, Joseph, here
Wolfowitz, Paul, here
Wolin, expansion of, here
women
dress in time of plague, here
entry into labour markets, here
and reproduction, here
work ethic, rise of, here
World Trade Center bombing, here
wrestling, here
Xi Jinping, here, here
Xicoténcatl, here
Xinjiang (Xiyu), here, here, here, here, here, here
and ‘Project Beauty’, here
Xiongnu, here, here, here
see also Huns
Yale, Elihu, here
Yalta Conference, here, here
Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince (of Kiev), here
Yathrib, see Medina
Yazdagird I, Shah, here
Yazdagird III, Shah, here
Yemen, here, here, here, here
Yersinia pestis, and plague, here
Yihetuan uprising (Boxer Rebellion), here
Yinshan zhengyao, here
Yngvar the Wayfarer, here
Yom Kippur War, here, here, here
Yorktown, surrender of, here
Yüan dynasty, here, here
Yuezhi nomads, here, here
Yugoslavia, post-war, here
Yuxinou International Railway, here
Zahir Shah, King (of Afghanistan), here
Zara, here, here
Zheng He, Admiral, here
Zhongdu, here, here
Zhukov, General Georgi, here
Zinoviev, Grigorii, here
Zionism, here, here
Zoroastrian art, here
Zoroastrianism, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Zosimus, here
ZTE, here
Zuanquan, here
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Croatia through Travellers’ Eyes (edited)
The Alexiad of Anna Komnene (revised translation)
The First Crusade: The Call from the East
The fabrics of the Silk Roads were highly desirable, and were sometimes even used as currency. This textile from the eighth or ninth century shows the famous horses of central Asia.
The Silk Roads present many challenges, obstacles and natural barriers. These include the Pamir Mountains, where passes were heavily protected, such as at Tashkurgan’s Stone Fort (above), near Kashgar, and the treacherous Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, western China (below).
Women preparing newly-woven silk. Th is image was made by the Chinese Emperor Huizong of the Song dynasty, early twelfth century.
Ceramic sculpture of a Sogdian trader, mounted on a Bactrian camel, dating to the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD).
Lavish decorations from Sogdian palaces in Panjikent attest to the rewards of trade across Asia.
Inscription at Naksh-i Rustām of the Chief Priest, Kirdīr, trumpeting the triumph of Zoroastrianism.
The Buddh
as of Bamiyan, symbols of the advance of Buddhism into Central Asia.
A Sogdian translation of a Christian psalter, using Syriac script. Disseminating faith in local languages was an important factor in how they spread.
The Crucifixion, from the Rabbula Gospels, a Syriac illuminated manuscript from the sixth century.
The ‘Standing Caliph’ coin, perhaps depicting the Prophet Muhammad himself.
A folio of an indigo-dyed copy of the Qur’ān, North Africa, ninth or tenth century.
The new Muslim empire brought wealth flooding back to the centre. Here the Sultan is shown surrounded by his courtiers, from a manuscript of the Persian epic poem the Shāhnāma by Firdawsī.
Muslim rulers were great patrons of the arts and of scholarship. Scholars in discussion at an ‘Abbāsid library, image from the Maqāmāt of al-H. arīrī.
The Map of Mah. mūd al-Kāshgharī, showing Balāsāghūn as the centre of the world.
Illustration of al-Bīrūnī’s explanation of the phases of the moon.
War and trade went hand in hand. The forbidding defensive walls of Bukhara.
Detail from a runestone from Tilinge, Sweden, commemorating the death of a Scandinavian adventurer in ‘Serkland’ – the land of the Saracens, or Arabs.
The Vikings were heavily involved in human trafficking. Their reputation for violence played an important part in their success.
The Mongols swept across Asia with astonishing speed. Here, Genghis Khan pursues an enemy, supported by his men.
It was not just trade and conquest that flowed along the Silk Roads; so did disease. The most devastating was the Black Death, which ravaged Asia and Europe in the fourteenth century. Victims depicted in the Toggenburg Bible have the distinctive swellings that Boccaccio said could be the size of apples.
The gold of West Africa was famous across the Mediterranean. The great Malian king, Mansa Musa, ‘the richest and most noble’ of rulers, holds a large golden nugget in this detail from the Catalan Atlas, 1375.
China became increasingly interested in the world beyond the Pacific in the fifteenth century. The Chinese Admiral Zheng He explored the Indian Ocean and the coast of East Africa. This wall painting from the Chinese Temple Shrine, Penang, Malaysia, shows one of his ships.
Cortés and Xicoténcatl, whose alliance brought about the demise of the Aztecs. Cortés claimed to suffer from an illness that could only be cured by gold.
Map of the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Bay of Bengal by Jan Huygens van Linschoten – the doyen of European mapmakers.
The bustling port of Calicut in south-western India, a century after Vasco da Gama’s expedition. European traders who flocked to Asia could make huge profi ts from selling goods to the new rich back home.
The stunning mausoleum of Gūr-i Mīr in Samarkand, resting place of Timur and his heirs.
The Taj Mahal, a symbol of love – and of the sharp surge in wealth in India in the seventeenth century.
The Dutch delegation being received in Udaipur by the Maharana Sangram Singh in 1711 (detail). Negotiating (and reconfi rming) trade privileges was vital to defend European commercial interests.
The Dutch Golden Age: Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window – with a bowl in the foreground in the distinctive blue and white colours of Asian ceramics.
The East India Company made fortunes for many of its officers. Its spectacular failure led to a government bail-out that antagonised many in Britain’s colonies. In 1773, men dressed as ‘Indians’ tipped tea into the harbour in Boston in protest. The Boston Tea Party was a milestone on the route to the American Declaration of Independence.
The assassination of Alexander Burnes in Kabul on Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign 2 November 1841. Burnes had been a popular commentator on Central Asian affairs before his death.
Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary at the start of the First World War. Grey believed good relations with Russia were vital to Britain’s interests in India and the Perisan Gulf.
Shah Mozaff ar od-Din, whose requests for loans created problems – and opportunities – for London and St Petersburg.
Herbert Backe, architect of the plan to divide the Soviet Union into ‘surplus’ and ‘deficit’ zones. It was envisaged that millions would starve to death as a result.
Hitler’s Mountain Home, ‘the ultimate source of decorating inspiration’, according to Homes and Gardens. Hitler drew inspiration for German expansion east from British India – and from European settlers in America. The Volga, he said, was to be Germany’s Mississippi, with the indigenous population expelled beyond this frontier.
William Knox D’Arcy, a ‘capitalist of the highest order’, who won an exclusive concession to ‘probe, pierce and drill at will the depths of Persian soil’ for sixty years.
Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran who was desposed by a CIA-led plot in 1953. He was said to diff use ‘a slight reek of opium’.
Above: Mohammed Mossadegh, Time Man of the Year, 1952.
RIGHT: The Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi and his wife. ‘My visions were miracles that saved the country’, he told one interviewer.
The return of Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran in 1979 was greeted with wild celebrations in Teheran. The BBC estimated that 5 million people took to the streets.
Saddam Hussein, wearing his favoured military fatigues. He was identifi ed by the British in the 1960s as someone with whom ‘it would be possible to do business’.
Osama bin Laden. US Intelligence reports before 9/11 noted that there was considerable sympathy for his message in the Arabic-speaking world – though few endorsed his terrorist methods.
The Khan Shatyr Entertainment Centre in Astana, Kazakhstan. The futuristic transparent tent houses a shopping centre, sports facilities, cinemas – and an indoor beach resort.
Heydar Aliyev International Aiport in Baku, Azerbaijan. One of the state of the art transport hubs being built along the New Silk Road.
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© Peter Frankopan, 2015
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The Silk Roads: A New History of the World Page 89
