Silk roads | HISS233 | National University

Required Reading:

Kevin Reilly, The Human Journey, Chapter 4

Website: Silk Road – http://asiasociety.org/education/silk-road

Website: Silk Road History – http://www.thesilkroadchina.com/fact-v11-the-silk-road-history.html

Primary Sources:

Website: The Journey of Faxian to India (ca. 400 CE) – http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/faxian.html

Website: The Travels of Marco Polo (ca. 1300 CE) – read Chapter 1 through Chapter 18) – https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Travels_of_Marco_Polo/Preface/Chapter_1

Discussion Prompts:

After reading Chapter 4 and the material at the websites, and viewing the videos, please make a 250-word initial post that answers the following questions about the primary sources:

Faxian and Marco Polo lived 900 years apart, near the beginning and end of the Silk Road. What values do their narratives promote? What similarities and differences do you see in their narratives? How are those similarities and differences related to the kinds of journeys they undertook, the purposes of their journeys, and the times in which they composed their travel narratives?