ASIA 186The Silk Roads

3 credits · Asian Studies · Penn State

Taking cross-cultural communication and connectivity as its central themes, this course explores the central role that the silk roads and Indian Ocean maritime routes have played throughout Eurasian history. The course provides a historical survey of the land and sea routes and networks connecting Europe and Asia, the peoples and cultures that flourished along these routes, and a variety of exchanges that took place by way of these routes.The course develops insight into trends and patterns over a long period of history, from ancient to modern times; the course also focuses on distinctive periods of history when patterns were disrupted and reformed, and when relationships changed among the peoples and states involved in the silk roads and maritime routes.