"The Silk Roads" by Peter Frankopan (2015)

"There is more going on, then, than the clumsy interventions of the west in Iraq and Afghanistan and the use of pressure in Ukraine, Iran and elsewhere.  From east to west, the silk roads are rising up once more."

Peter Frankopan is a Professor of Global History at Oxford University.  At the time of writing he's written one other book: The First Crusade: The Call from the East.

The Wikipedia entry for this book is, by the way, awful.  The criticisms expressed there are valid, but someone needs to add a better synopsis and revise the Reception section.  I'd do it, but hey, I'm doing this!

So what's The Silk Roads about?  Put in simple terms, it claims to be "a new history of the world" in which the middle east is repositioned at the center of world history and politics.  This of course makes a certain amount of sense if you venture far enough back into Antiquity, into the time when Greece and Rome contended with the might of the Persian Empire.  It even makes a certain amount of sense if you move forward from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, and from there to the years just after the First World War, when countries were scrambling to secure supplies of oil.  But I'm not sure if it works for every time period, especially considering how various empires and caliphates in the region inevitably crumbled over time.

I'm also not sure that it works for the modern era, given the state that some middle eastern countries are in today.  Then there's the fact that the author adds and subtracts China from his equations in the most arbitrary manner.  He's very positive in how he views China's role on the world stage (when it suits his arguments), but the picture he paints of that country is extremely selective.  The closing chapter of this book is also, to put it charitably, wildly optimistic in how it views what seemed like a middle eastern resurgence in 2015.  Things in China aren't looking so rosy now, Israel's bombing the hell out of Palestine, and Russia's still mired in its invasion of the Ukraine, so... what were we talking about again?

It's a decent survey of the region's history, but it's funny how even the author can't seem to stick to his own topic.  At certain moments he can't help but jump into the history of Europe and North America, a fact which undermines his argument that what was happening in the middle east, during the same time period, was what was most important.

There's not much in The Silk Roads that you won't remember from any survey of World History class, but I did learn a few interesting tidbits.  I doubt I'll read the author's other book, but this book, given its size, was fairly easy to get through.

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"Astoria" by Peter Stark (2015)

"After their meeting, Astor had framed his global commercial vision into an overarching strategy and meticulous business plan that dovetailed with Jefferson's geopolitical thinking.  As soon as possible, in 1809, Astor would dispatch his first ship, the Enterprise, to test the profitability of his transglobal trading scheme with a quick stop at the Northwest Coast.  The following year, in 1810, he would send two advance parties - one around Cape Horn by sea on the Tonquin and one across America by land.  The Overland Party would begin to lay out a vast network of fur posts reaching up the Missouri River, over the Rockies, and to the Pacific Ocean, and open a 'line of communication' across the continent along which both messages and furs could travel."

Peter Stark lives in Montana.  He's written for Outside, The New Yorker, and the Smithsonian.  Astoria is one of several books he's written on the subject of "explorers versus the American wilderness."

Following the Lewis and Clark Expedition, two groups of trappers and traders set out to create a Pacific empire at the mouth of the Columbia River.  What they get for their troubles is a lot of pain, a lot of frustration, and a lot of heartbreak.  Their efforts are doomed to failure for a host of reasons, not least of which is their extreme distance from what they'd call civilization.

Astoria offers a harrowing account of their enterprise, and Peter Stark's telling of this oft-forgotten tail is one of the most comprehensively written historical accounts I've read in quite some time.  He strikes a good balance between historical trivia and the facts of the expedition, and he makes the personages involved more interesting than they might otherwise be.  This book is so good, in fact, that I can't think of a single negative thing to say about it - aside from the fact that many modern readers, with their diminished attention spans - will likely find it "boring."

I bought this book at the same time as the previously reviewed The Oregon Trail, and even though both are good, I think Astoria is far more interesting.  It's worth noting, moreover, than many of the trails blazed by the failed Astoria expedition (in particular the South Pass through the Rockies) were later used by those going West on the Oregon Trail.  Astoria itself was one of the two most popular endpoints for that route.

Having spent a lot of time in Astoria as a kid, I was surprised at both the history and the human drama present during its earliest years.  Who knew that so much blood, sweat, and tears could go into the creation of a small town on the Oregon Coast?

Another Book You Might Like?

"Historic America: The Northwest" by Jim Kaplan (2002)