070032 UE Guided Reading Global History - Travelers along the Silk Roads (2021W)

The course addresses the structures and development of the trade and communication networks known as “Silk roads”, through the reports of medieval travelers from the 7th up until the early 15th century. By comparing a variety of travel accounts (in English translation) resulting from different aims (pilgrimage, trade, diplomacy), the course provides an overview of: 1) the routes of these travels, 2) the different cultures and religions which met and developed along the Silk Roads, and 3) material culture related to the methods of travels and to the different lifestyles encountered along these routes.
The analysis will focus on three main moments: firstly, the course will address the period between the 7th and 13th centuries, from the Tang period (e.g. Buddhist pilgrims, Xuanzang and Yijing) till the emergence of Mongol power in Eurasia, and consequently the radical change in the scale and dynamics of the Silk Roads (as testified for example in the accounts of Rubruck, Carpini, Simon of Saint-Quentin, Odoric of Pordenone, Hayton, or the Daoist monk Chang Chun). The second half of the 13th century will be analysed as an example of the Mongols’s construction of imperial authority in Eurasia (as reported in Marco Polo and Rabban Sauma among others). At last, the course will cover travel accounts from the 14th century (such as Wang Dayuan, Jordanus de Severac, Ibn Battuta, Pegolotti) up until the Zheng He voyages in the Ming period, showing the regionalization of the economic and political dynamics initiated by the Mongols, and their contribution to the shaping of early-modern Asia.