The Journey of Maps and Images on the Silk Road (Brill's Inner Asian Library, 21)

Review

"Cet ouvrage est donc un moment fort dans la constitution d’un corpus de données qui permettront une réflexion sur les relations entre l’interculturalité et les objets graphiques qui la rendent visible." – Hervé Regnauld, in: espacestemps"… a rich feast for both experts and general readers and will invite far more transnational research on the Silk Road." – RANIN KAZEMI, Department of History, Yale University, in: Int. J. Middle East Stud. 42 (2010), 323–367"Accompanied by beautifully reproduced color figures, the articles in this volume weigh intriguing questions about the transmission of visual knowledge, considering, for example, how cultural blind spots can lead to copyists’ inaccuracies or how indigenous and foreign styles can affect one another. It is a rich feast for both experts and general readers and will invite far more transnational research on the Silk Road." – LIANG CAI, in: Int. J. Middle East Stud. 42 (2010)

From the Back Cover

This book covers new ground on the diffusion and transmission of geographical knowledge that occurred at critical junctures in the long history of the Silk Road. Much of twentieth-century scholarship on the Silk Road examined the ancient archaeological objects and medieval historical records found within each cultural area, while the consequences of long-distance interaction across Eurasia remained poorly studied. Here ample attention is given to the journeys that notions and objects undertook to transmit spatial values to other civilizations. In retracing the steps of four major circuits right across the many civilizations that shared the Silk Road, "The Journey of Maps and Images on the Silk Road" traces the ways in which maps and images surmounted spatial, historical and cultural divisions.