Episode notes
Long before airplanes, container ships, and the internet, the ancient world was already connected by a vast network of trade routes known as the Silk Road. Stretching across China, Central Asia, India, Persia, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean, these routes carried much more than silk.
In this episode, we explore how merchants, empires, oasis cities, and nomadic communities helped goods, religions, technologies, knowledge, and diseases travel across continents. We also examine the role of the Sogdians, the importance of Central Asia, the expansion of trade under the Mongol Empire, and the devastating spread of the Black Death.
The Silk Road was not one road, but an early system of global interdependence—one that brought distant civilizations together centuries before modern globalization.