Eurasia was the combination of Europe and Asia today and
anyone can imagine that this is a huge amount of land. This land needed an
exchange system so that the cultures could trade and travel. This gave birth to
the creation of Silk Roads. Even though these roads were first used to trade
silk, they created a way of trade for Eurasia which created commerce for
cultures. Key consequences of silk roads were spread of religion. For example Buddhism
spread across the silk roads from India to Central Asia. Same could be said for
the Sea roads as they connected cultures through sea but in some places it
became the simple way of travel and trade. This was in Southeast Asia as there
are many tiny islands that would need sea roads for commerce. It was Camel that changed the commerce
forever for West Africa. This gave the Africans the ability to be able to
travel at night through the Sahara desert
The book implies that
when it all began as a golden age for china, Under Sui dynasty china regained
its unity and even when it collapsed the two dynasties the Tang and Song both
built on its foundation. It was very interesting to me that china changed so
much through a short period of time and it just kept evolving. However Buddhism
reached china through the silk roads and became a part of Chinese culture after
the collapse of the Hun dynasty.
When I went to Spain I came across many mosques and
witnessed some of the creation of the Muslims centuries ago. This was part of
the changes that took place in Europe as Muslims took over parts of Spain.
However the most interesting part of this time was that unlike the Chinese and Muslims
the European civilization never gained its unity and instead became system of competing
states. This competition militarized these states more than any other
civilization which I think really sets the stage for the things that happened in
the future in Europe and even today.
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