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Shadow of the Silk Road by: Colin Thubron List Price: $25.95 City Travel Guides Price: $17.13 You Save: $8.82 (34%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Hardcover Dewey Decimal Number: 915.8 EAN: 9780061231728 ISBN: 006123172X Label: HarperCollins Manufacturer: HarperCollins Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 384 Publication Date: July 01, 2007 Publisher: HarperCollins Release Date: July 03, 2007 Studio: HarperCollins Sales Rank: 96166 Related Items:
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Editorial Review: Product Description: Shadow of the Silk Road records a journey along the greatest land route on earth. Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran and into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron covers some seven thousand miles in eight months. Making his way by local bus, truck, car, donkey cart and camel, he travels from the tomb of the Yellow Emperor, the mythic progenitor of the Chinese people, to the ancient port of Antioch—in perhaps the most difficult and ambitious journey he has undertaken in forty years of travel. The Silk Road is a huge network of arteries splitting and converging across the breadth of Asia. To travel it is to trace the passage not only of trade and armies but also of ideas, religions and inventions. But alongside this rich and astonishing past, Shadow of the Silk Road is also about Asia today: a continent of upheaval. One of the trademarks of Colin Thubron's travel writing is the beauty of his prose; another is his gift for talking to people and getting them to talk to him. Shadow of the Silk Road encounters Islamic countries in many forms. It is about changes in China, transformed since the Cultural Revolution. It is about false nationalisms and the world's discontented margins, where the true boundaries are not political borders but the frontiers of tribe, ethnicity, language and religion. It is a magnificent and important account of an ancient world in modern ferment. Customer Reviews
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 Rating:  - Love World CulturesI am actually only half way through this book. I became interested in travel writings after reading all of Ryszard Kapuscinski's reportage/diaries, also a world traveler who writes with exquisite decorum. I enjoy objective, beautifully written prose which is the flavor I find in Colin Thubron's book. I like his humanity, curiosity, and tolerance of the people he meets. This book will transcend and include you in his travels. It is very educational and will expand your knowledge of peoples of another world. Rating:  - In the Footsteps of Marco Polo Shadow of the Silk Road (P.S.) Shadow of the Silk Road "In the Footsteps of Marco Polo" "For hours I tramped along a mountain road forty miles south of Zhangye, toward the cliff temples of Matisi, before the headlights of a van swung bleakly into view through the falling snow. Its driver shouted that the road ahead was closed: panic over the SARS virus was bringing everything to a standstill. All the same, he said, he would get me through. We clattered unquestioned past a police post. Then, as the snow cleared and weak sun came out, we entered an Alpine beauty of dark, unflowering trees under the Quilian mountains. In the village beneath the temples nothing moved. Someone had built a line of wooden villas, ... Read More: Rating: - Un libro hipnotizanteEl Sr. Thubron es un viajero de antiguo cuño. No usa máquinas fotográficas. Si es que toma algunos apuntes, me imagino que lo hace sobre una Moleskine. Allí,tal vez, también dibuja. Educado en Eton y Oxford, su prosa es elegante y maravillosa. Hipnotiza al lector. Calla para dejar que los propios personajes hablen. Ha gastado su vida en Asia. Su conocimento llega al grado de la erudición, aunque nunca intimida con ello. Lo veo en la línea de un Patrick Leigh Fermor o de R. Kapukzinski. Se lo recomiendo, fervientemente. Rating: - Travel and thoughts on a vanishing worldColin Thubron's vivid and very well written descriptions make us think about the complexity of Asia. His book is not just the report of a long journey, but also a valuable contribution for us to understand better the humankind. A perfect combination of realistic reports, history and culture. Thubron meets real people, talks about the past and also about the present, sometimes painful, of their vanishing way of life. Rating: - Enjoyable storiesThubron undertakes a spiritual and physical quest along the once commercial highway of the Silk Road from China across Central Asia and Iran to Turkey. Along this three-part journey, he plunges the reader into history, archeology, mythology, religions, and peoples whose genetic and cultural blending do not conform with political boundaries. Through artifacts like beautifully glinting faience or tile, the,often glorious, past is rediscovered through seeking out clues. In this trip of discovery, Thubron determinedly scales sheer cliffs with his fingernails, treads through villages and across rivulets to recover evidence of past civilizations in murals, tiles, minarets, chiseled-out caves, and more. He risks life and limb brushing against the SARS ... Read More: |
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