Central Asia

Between these covers, the millennia of mercantile and cultural exchange along the Silk Route are celebrated by travellers and writers from Marco Polo to Sven Hedin, from William of Rubrick to Ella Maillart.  Kathleen Hopkirk has spent a lifetime researching this vital heartland, traversed by five, inhospitable deserts but united by ancient chains of trading oases: from the Buddhist Empire of Kushan, to the scholarly Islamic centre at Bukhara.