The Crucial Role Played by The Silk Road in Afro-eurasian History

David Christian, a world historian and scholar of Russian history, who’s an article, “Silk Roads or Steppe Roads” hypothesized an ideology on the ecological factors in the Silk Road encouraging trade. Silk Roads or Steppe Roads focuses on a captivating view of how the Silk Road played a crucial role in establishing and preserving the unity of Afro Eurasian history. Way before there were ships, trains, and aircraft to transport goods from one place/area to another, there was the Silk Road. The Silk Road was a complex network of trading routes combining through Europe, Asia, and Africa, covering much land which was established as the first major trade system. Christian’s main proposition claims that “both civilization and ecological exchanges have created a unity that has been largely ignored by historians.” 

Christian’s thesis itself looks at three aspects when understanding this unity; silk roads have origins in prehistory, their function changed in the classical era, and that the routes expanded into the North in the last thousand years. Christians' thoughts support the idea of a ‘world system’ with a shared Afro Eurasian exchange history of religion, culture, goods, people, and diseases that dates back earlier than previously thought. He explains this by stating that, “the Silk Road is a series of exchanges that linked different ecological zones of the Afro-Eurasian landmass into one singular system.”

Through the numerous trans-ecological exchanges that occurred along the Silk Roads, a contribution was made largely to the growth of trade within the Afro-Eurasian region, and more specifically trade between the agrarian communities, steppe pastoralist, and woodland cultures. The many different features that the Silk Road obtained indicated that ecological factors played a role in deepening the trade immensely. For example, the silk roads cross the borders of desert areas or barren steppes inhabited by pastoralists. These ecological borders nonetheless created the demand for trade due to the fact that the essential goods needed by the people living in different environments were also different. The majority of the products traded came from the steppe land, whilst several of the products made by the agrarian community were sold to the steppes. These products evidently proved how influential trade was in the Afro-Eurasian region.

Christian also articulates that the Silk Roads were natural sea and land routes connecting agricultural communities where exchanges of products, religion, and ideas were made. In addition, Christian’s views on the Steppe Roads which connected Eurasian agriculture were made happen by the commercial barter of goods from pastoral and agricultural regions.

In conclusion, a revised understanding of the role and history of the Silk Roads shows the extent to which the entire Afro-Eurasian landmass has been linked by complex networks of exchange way before it was previously thought. Christian utterly reminds us that Afro-Eurasian has a common history despite the ecological and cultural variety of its many different regions. His explanation of trade being carried out over steppes rather than roads helps to identify that these ecological settlements were still very well off even though they were away from main inland cities.

Christian’s views on the Silk Road or Steppe Road have helped me understand that the history and views on the establishment of the Silk Road are often masked of what they really are, as well as there is always more to develop in history. I agree with Christian’s thoughts on the history of the Silk Road being considerably more complex than it was claimed to be. For instance, there is no fixed date on when the Silk Road was established.

I found it very interesting that it was named the ‘Silk Road’ although it had little to do with the silk trade. In relation to Christianity, Robert Strayer believed that the silk road was used as a passage for a collective amount of goods, technologies, religions, and commodities.6 Thus, proving that different empires, living in different locations, and trades coming from different hemispheres allowed an advancement to trade due to the ecological factors. The most profound evidence I found interesting in Christian’s article was the fact that it was not just a road and more of a route. Christian explains that the Silk Roads were laid upon the foundation of arid steppes, and desert lands where the different regions of Afro-Eurasia exchanged ideas, languages, goods, cultural beliefs, and even diseases, for a lot longer than is understood.

Christian’s article nonetheless does justice to the fact that historical realities are misrepresented and there is a lot more to the history of the Silk Road than we will ever be able to identify. Both Strayer's and Christian’s ideologies are influential in understanding the history of the Silk Road. Both authors believed that the Silk Road was one of the main trading routes through the West and East and that many commodities including; silk, gold, silver, religious beliefs, and languages, were exchanged and transported. Strayer focuses more on the negative aspects of the Silk Road upon the belief of diseases being spread through travelers coming in contact with animals, foreign people, and different hemispheres. Whereas Christian focuses on the ecological factors of the Silk Road.

Strayer identifies the toll death had on the regions through the many different illnesses that infected people as well as the substantial amount of death tolls that took place. For example, one of the most tragic diseases that took place through the Silk Roads was the bubonic plague between 534 and 750 BCE that had severely damaged the coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea. 9 Subsequently, Christians who focused more on the ecological factors of the Silk Road, also aligned with Strayer's beliefs on the widespread of diseases as he believed that there were unfortunate illnesses that left. “Afro-Eurasian communities ill, because of their livestock, and exchanges that shared diseases.”

Furthermore, Strayer’s beliefs upon the spread of diseases only allow you to believe that the Silk Road was beneficial for the exchanges of trade until its collapse, while Christian looks at all aspects and focuses on the Silk Road as more of cultural success while understanding that it was not much of a commercial route. The Silk Road is highly important historically, although it is important to understand that the entire landmass of Afro-Eurasian was linked by complex networks way before previously known.

References

1. David Christian, “Silk Roads or Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History,” Journal of World History 11, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2000.0004
2. Robert W. Strayer, Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources, vol. 2, From 1500 to the Present. 3rd edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016.