A complex network of trade routes known as the Silk Road spanned Afro-Eurasia's mountains, plains, deserts, and seas. From silk to spices, religion to dance, traffic in goods and ideas was crucial to the development of civilizations through rich cultural interactions and economic activity. Each section includes maps, a historical and archaeological overview and thematic essays.

Susan Whitfield broadens her exploration of the Silk Road and expands her rich and varied portrait of life along the great pre-modern trade routes of Eurasia. This new edition is comprehensively updated to support further understanding of themes relevant to global and comparative history and remains the only history of the Silk Road to reconstruct the route through the personal experiences of travelers.

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a potential gamechanger for the Central Asia and South Caucasus (CASC) region. CASC countries naturally view this massive development program as a unique opportunity to accelerate their economic development via foreign investment, upgraded physical infrastructure, and tighter economic relationships with their neighbors. Yet embracing the BRI is not without risks.

This book focuses on energy security in the strategically important region of Central Asia. The region holds huge energy reserves, but its energy systems are highly inefficient and unreliable, and thus require urgent reform. However, endemic corruption, discrimination and the strong centralization of power have so far blocked initiatives to reorganize energy supply. The case of Central Asia is uniquely relevant for understanding the informal constraints on energy law and policy.

This book brings together a series of innovative contributions which provide an eclectic view of how theorizing politics plays out in Central Asia.