Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
The Silk Road in World History
Summary
Unlike any other road in history, the Silk Road, which linked China to Europe and the Mediterranean, has profoundly influenced world history through its exchange of goods, ideas, and people. This presentation will examine in depth what made this historical trade route so crucial, how it impacted the expansion of Buddhism and Islam, what accounts for its current comeback, and finally, what the Silk Road’s relationship is to Yiddish.
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite teaches Chinese History, Middle Eastern and Islamic history, and sometimes Jewish history, at NYU. He is author of The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China (Harvard, 2005); The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History (Oxford, 2009); He is co-editor of Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Culture, and Politics (Brandeis, 2013); The Scaffolding of Sovereignty: Global and Aesthetic Perspectives on the History of a Concept (Columbia University Press, 2017), and Time and Language: New Sinology and Chinese History, (Hawaii University Press, 2023).