The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

by Peter Frankopan

Some of the edicts issued by Maurayan ruler Ashoka, the greatest of the early Indian rulers, were made with parallel Greek translations, evidently for the benefit of the local population.26

It has been suggested, for instance, that the Rāmāyana, the Sanskrit epic poem, owes a debt to the Iliad and to the Odyssey, with the theme of the abduction of Lady Sita by Rāvaṇa a direct echo of the elopement of Helen with Paris of Troy. Influences and inspiration flowed in the other direction too, with some scholars arguing that the Aeneid was in turn influenced by Indian texts, such as the Mahābhārata.31 Ideas,

We think of globalisation as a uniquely modern phenomenon; yet 2,000 years ago too, it was a fact of life, one that presented opportunities, created problems and prompted technological advance.

Christianity has long been associated with the Mediterranean and western Europe. In part, this has been due to the location of the leadership of the church, with the senior figures of the Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox churches based in Rome, Canterbury and Constantinople (modern Istanbul) respectively. But in fact every aspect of early Christianity was Asian. Its geographic focal point, of course, was Jerusalem, together with the other sites related to Jesus’ birth, life and crucifixion; its original language was Aramaic, a member of the Semitic group of tongues native to the Near East; its theological backdrop and spiritual canvas was Judaism, formed in Israel and during the exile in Egypt and Babylon; its stories were shaped by the deserts, floods, droughts and famines that were unfamiliar in Europe.

While the Muslim world took delight in innovation, progress and new ideas, much of Christian Europe withered in the gloom, crippled by a lack of resources and a dearth of curiosity. St Augustine had been positively hostile to the concept of investigation and research. ‘Men want to know for the sake of knowing,’ he wrote scornfully, ‘though the knowledge is of no value to them.’ Curiosity, in his words, was nothing more than a disease.91

Based on the Byzantine calendar that was used in Russia, the timing seemed to be crystal clear. Using the date of the Creation as 5,508 years before Christ, the world was going to end on 1 September 1492.98

The age of empire and the rise of the west were built on the capacity to inflict violence on a major scale. The Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, the progression towards democracy, civil liberty and human rights, were not the result of an unseen chain linking back to Athens in antiquity or a natural state of affairs in Europe; they were the fruits of political, military and economic success in faraway continents.

On one occasion Vasco da Gama himself captured a ship filled with hundreds of Muslims returning to India after going on pilgrimage to Mecca. Ignoring the desperately generous offers of those on board to pay a ransom, he ordered the ship to be set on fire in an act so grotesque that one observer avowed, ‘I will remember what happened every single day of my life.’ Women held up their jewellery to beg for mercy from the flames or from the water, while others held up their infants to try to protect them. Da Gama watched impassively, ‘cruelly and without any pity’ as every last passenger and crew member drowned before his eyes.23

Gold and silver taken from the Americas found its way to Asia; it was this redistribution of wealth that enabled the Taj Mahal to be built. Not without irony, one of the glories of India was the result of the suffering of ‘Indians’ on the other side of the world.

Fighting, violence and bloodshed were glorified, as long as they could be considered just. This was one reason, perhaps, why religion became so important: there could be no better justification of war than its being in defence of the Almighty. From the outset, the fusion of religion and expansion were closely bound together: even the sails of Columbus’ ships were marked by large crosses.

leaders in building fortresses and in storming them. It was striking how the European insistence on constructing imposing sites that could be secured from the inside was a source of bemusement to locals. No other traders had built forts in the past, noted the Nawab of Bengal in the 1700s, so why on earth did the Europeans insist on doing so now?66

Britain was an inhospitable place, wrote one of the great historians of late antiquity, where the air was so poisonous in some places that it could kill if the wind changed direction.27 It was inhabited by Britons – whose name, speculated one author not long afterwards, came from the Latin brutus, that is, irrational or stupid.28

the decisive moment came in 1757 when an expedition led by Robert Clive was sent to Calcutta to intervene following an attack on the city by the Nawab of Bengal. Clive was soon being offered enormous sums to provide support for rival local candidates wanting to assume power. In no time, he found he was granted control of the diwani – the tax take of the region – and was able to help himself to the revenues of one of the most populated and economically vibrant parts of Asia, home to a textile industry that was responsible for more than half of all Britain’s imports from the east. Almost overnight, he became one of the richest men in the world.56 A House of Commons Select Committee that was set up in 1773 to look at the aftermath of the conquest of Bengal revealed the staggering sums taken from the Bengali purse. Over £2 million – tens of billions in today’s terms – had been distributed as ‘presents’, almost all of it finding its way into the pockets of EIC employees locally.57 The outrage was compounded by disgraceful and shocking scenes in Bengal itself. By 1770, the price of grain had been driven higher and higher, with catastrophic results as famine kicked in. The death toll was estimated in the millions; even the governor-general declared that a third of the population had died. Europeans had thought only of enriching themselves as the local population starved to death.58 The situation was entirely avoidable. The suffering of the many had been sacrificed for personal ga...

The British in India were constantly cited by the Nazi leadership as a model of how large-scale domination could be accomplished by few people.6