This book describes the interactions between various civilizations and societies along the Silk Road between 500 BCE and 1500 CE, the period from the first encounters of the ancient Greek and Persian civilizations to the time when maritime exchanges between Europe and Asia exceeded those on land.

Starting with the genesis and features of civilizations, the book focuses on the history and exchange of different cultures along the Silk Road: Zhang Qian's successful pioneering feat which inaugurated the opening stretch of the Silk Road, the origins and dissemination of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Manichaeism, Nestorian-Christianity and Islam, the westward spread of papermaking and printing, as well as the long-distance exchanges of scripts and spoken language, music, architecture, painting, and sculpture via the Silk Road. It also outlines the historically significant migrations of various peoples from east to west, such as the Xiongnu, Yuezhi, Han, Qiang, Hephthalites, Turkic groups, Uighurs, Mongols, and Xibe.

The author has interwoven facts, anecdotes and his own experiences throughout the book, making it an interesting history reader and cultural primer. This book thus will be an essential read to students and scholars of Eurasian Studies, Chinese History and those who are interested in the history of the Silk Road in general.

Professor H. K. Chang, well-known as a biomedical engineering expert, is a Foreign Member of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) and a Chevalier of France's L'Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur. He is one of those rare personalities who first excelled in the hard sciences but went on to devote himself as an educator and to the humanities. He was dean of engineering at the University of Pittsburgh and served City University of Hong Kong as president 1996-2007. In recent years, Professor Chang has lectured or taught general education courses at Cairo University, University of Paris, Peking University, University of Delhi, Bilkent University in Ankara, Tsinghua University, Shandong University, Bosphorus University in Istanbul, Shanghai Jiaotong University and China-Europe International Business School. His academic interests now focus on cultural exchanges across the Eurasian landmass, particularly along the Silk Road. Author of a dozen books on civilizations and education, he has interwoven his 40 years of travel experiences along the Silk Road--from China's northwest to India, Central and West Asia, Caucasus, Asia Minor and the Mediterranean--into this tome.