A generously annotated translation from the Hou Hanshu giving details on the Silk Routes connecting China, India, Central Asia and the Roman Empire in the 2nd Century.

John Hill's eagerly awaited second edition - in two volumes - of the annotated translation of the Hou Hanshu - renamed Through the Jade Gate - China to Rome - has been extensively revised. The book grew so big that it had to be published in two volumes. Readers will require both volumes. � Volume I includes the original Chinese text, a detailed introduction, maps and comprehensive notes to the text. � Volume II has 26 appendices which highlight extra fascinating information of special interest - such as Rhinoceroses, the Story of Sea-silk and the Significance and Use of Skull Cups - and the comprehensive bibliography. This updated, definitive English translation of the complete Chronicle on the Western Regions from the Hou Hanshu, presents an intriguing picture of this little-known period of history. It describes the origins of the Silk Routes using information collected from soldiers, merchants, envoys and spies. The text is based on the report to the Chinese Emperor An, circa 125 CE, by Ban Yong, his senior general in the Western Regions. The Chronicle contains the earliest geographical, historical, political, economic and cultural information in Chinese about the Roman Empire, Egypt, India, Parthia and many other kingdoms, and also describes the routes between East and West. Along these arteries travelled people, cultures, languages, philosophies, religions, technologies, animals, plants, countless precious and rare trade items, and the knowledge of distant places. These exchanges were critical for the development and flowering of the great civilizations of China, Rome, Parthia, the Kushans and India, and unquestionably laid the foundations of modern globalisation. The first edition of this work received critical acclaim from scholars world-wide and is widely quoted in academic works. This much expanded second edition should prove to be an even more useful guide and source-book on the early history of the Silk Routes. "This treasure house of remarkable facts and speculations should appeal to both scholars and the curious."

Rome and China provides an updated history and analysis of contacts and mutual influence between two of ancient Eurasia’s most prominent imperial powers, Rome and China. It highlights the extraordinary interconnectivity of ancient Eurasia which allowed for actual contacts between Rome and China (however fleeting) and examines in detail the influences from both ends of Eurasia which had cultural and political consequences for both Rome and China. This volume will be of interest to anyone working on the Roman Empire, Inner Asia, the Silk Routes and China in the Classical and Late Antique periods.

Similar in size and in duration, the Chinese and the Roman empires ruled half the world's population at the time of their co-existence. But what did they know about each other? In China and the Roman Orient Friedrich Hirth uses linguistic, geographical and historical analysis of ancient Chinese records to reconstruct the ancient trade routes used by the Chinese and to show what knowledge they had of the Roman Empire. His careful research on the original Chinese sources also tells us much about the geography, history and commerce of the period. China and the Roman Orient quickly established itself as a landmark work. It remains an important and much cited work but is now scarce. This new edition contains a new introduction by leading contemporary scholar Victor Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, USA

Studies the complex system of trade exchanges and commerce that profoundly changed Roman society.

A critical new interpretation of the early history of Chinese civilization based on the most recent scholarship and archaeological discoveries.

John Hill's eagerly awaited second edition - in two volumes - of the annotated translation of the Hou Hanshu - renamed Through the Jade Gate - China to Rome - has been extensively revised. The book grew so big that it had to be published in two volumes. Readers will require both volumes. · Volume I includes the original Chinese text, a detailed introduction, maps and comprehensive notes to the text. · Volume II has 26 appendices which highlight extra fascinating information of special interest - such as Rhinoceroses, the Story of Sea-silk and the Significance and Use of Skull Cups - and the comprehensive bibliography. This updated, definitive English translation of the complete Chronicle on the Western Regions from theHou Hanshu, presents an intriguing picture of this little-known period of history. It describes the origins of the Silk Routes using information collected from soldiers, merchants, envoys and spies. The text is based on the report to the Chinese Emperor An, circa 125 CE, by Ban Yong, his senior general in the Western Regions. The Chronicle contains the earliest geographical, historical, political, economic and cultural information in Chinese about the Roman Empire, Egypt, India, Parthia and many other kingdoms, and also describes the routes between East and West. Along these arteries travelled people, cultures, languages, philosophies, religions, technologies, animals, plants, countless precious and rare trade items, and the knowledge of distant places. These exchanges were critical for the development and flowering of the great civilizations of China, Rome, Parthia, the Kushans and India, and unquestionably laid the foundations of modern globalisation. The first edition of this work received critical acclaim from scholars world-wide and is widely quoted in academic works. This much expanded second edition should prove to be an even more useful guide and source-book on the early history of the Silk Routes. "This treasure house of remarkable facts and speculations should appeal to both scholars and the curious."

The Han-Xiongnu War (133 BC – AD 89) pitted the Han dynasty of China against a confederation of nomadic steppe peoples, the Xiongnu Empire. In campaigns waged on a huge scale by the standards of contemporary Western warfare (perhaps half a million soldiers were fielded at the Battle of Mobei in 119 BC), the two states fought for control of Central Asia, hungry for its rich resources and Western trade links. China’s victory set the stage for millennia of imperial rule and a vast sphere of influence in Asia. Scott Forbes Crawford examines the war in a lively, engaging narrative. He builds a mosaic encompassing the centuries of conflict through biographies of fifteen historical figures: the Chinese and Xiongnu emperors who first led their armies into battle; ‘peace bride’ Princess Jieyou, whose marriage to a steppe king forged a vital Chinese alliance; the explorer-diplomat Zhang Qian, who almost-inadvertently established the Silk Road, among other key individuals. Their stories capture the war’s breadth, the enduring impact on Han society and statecraft in what became a Chinese golden age, and the doomed resistance of the Xiongnu to an ever-strengthening juggernaut.

This book examines knowledge traditions that held together the fluid and overlapping maritime worlds of the Indian Ocean in the premodern period, as evident in the material and archaeological record. It breaks new ground by shifting the focus from studying cross-pollination of ideas from textual sources to identifying this exchange of ideas in archaeological and historical documentation. The themes covered in the book include conceptualization of the seas and maritime landscapes in Sanskrit, Arabic and Chinese narratives; materiality of knowledge production as indicated in the archaeological record of communities where writing on stone first appears; and anchoring the coasts, not only through an understanding of littoral shrines and ritual landscapes, but also by an analysis of religious imagery on coins, more so at the time of the introduction of new religions such as Islam in the Indian Ocean around the eighth century. This volume will be of great interest to researchers and scholars of archaeology, anthropology, museum and heritage studies, Indian Ocean studies, maritime studies, South and Southeast Asian studies, religious studies and cultural studies.