The Golden Road Hardcover – September 12, 2024

A thoroughly researched and engagingly written HUGE piece of our human history is brought to light, filling gaps and correcting distortions in a way that uplifts and leaves the reader breathless.

Everyone has heard of the Silk Road connecting China to the West. Dalrymple shows that something comparable, as well as older and deeper, existed based in India. Great religious ideas (Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim) flourished. Mathematical innovations without which global commerce and modern science is unthinkable rippled forth. India may be on its way to reclaiming a central and influential place in the world order.

299 pages of text and maps; 48 pages of color and B&W plates; 62 pages of endnotes; 34 page Bibliography; 2 page Glossary; 2 page "Acknowledgements;" and a ribbon bookmark. The book addresses the contributions to world history of India over roughly the 1st Millennium BCE and 1st Millennium CE. It focuses on trade networks; the origin and spread of Buddhism; the spread of Hinduism; cultural, artistic, and architectural interactions with China, Southeast Asia, the Moslem world, and, to a lesser extent, Rome and the Western World; and its contributions to scientific and mathematical understanding, particularly with regard to the development of "zero" as a mathematical symbol. The book is very well written, but suffers from the need to compartmentalize its numerous topics. There is extensive treatment of the spread of Buddhism to China, but that topic has to be treated apart from the discussion of trade with Rome or the discussion of Southeast Asian architecture. As a result, the book isn't a continuous flow, but, rather, a compilation of topics. I found the book's use of endnotes to be particularly frustrating. Endnotes are great for citations. They enable a reader to go back and either further pursue a topic or check the basis for statements. However, they are terrible when amplifying or clarifying text. The reader must stop the read, flip to the back of the book, find the note, read it, and then locate where he/she is in the text and resume reading. Footnotes merely require looking at the bottom of the page. This book makes extensive use of endnotes for clarification and amplification, greatly chopping up the read. There are a couple of footnotes and I have no idea why they were selected for this treatment as opposed to the many other notes relegated to the back of the book. I highly recommend the book, but be prepared for the division of topics and the use of endnotes.

As others have mentioned, Dalrymple"s histories are the best and every single one is worth a read. Some have not loved this one as much.I love this one as much. From decades of tai chi study and years of Sanskrit study I have puzzled over how ever did ideas get around Asia as they did.I knew a monk famously trekked back and forth. I knew Rama and Krishna got around.But how? Who did what first? And what went on when the Shaolin monks began to help the emperor.All Dalrymple's students and readers know the man loves India. But which India? When India? We know he does not like the way the East India Company (and let's face it, Great Britain) treated India.. We know he wants to clarify the record. Here it is. You could make your PhD out of his footnotes. I just wanted to know about the monk and the manuscripts.Here is another thing. The writing is world class. We know that about the author too. The first paragraph of the 7th chapter, one of the most exciting chapters for me, is the best example of that exquisite mastery in plain speak. The other greatest thing here is the insight into the travel on the monsoon winds. Finally, we know.One criticism -- Dalrymple has made a terrible mess of the monsoon wind timeline as well as his proofs of the sea trade timeline. I am scratching through Wikipedia trying to figure it out. He cites a monk contemporary with Buddha commenting on the seafaring gold rush but says 31 BCE for 300 years . . . leaving a gap from Buddha to Battle of Actium.Says the winds blow west for six months and east for six months but traders arrive in summer from east and start home in August. So now I would like for the professor to clarify this.I am reading Xuanzang with great appreciation.BUT the book's main argument for sea trade versus "Silk Road" is too carelessly done. While we might own that the term came later and nobody called it the Silk Road then, we also see that Buddhists built monasteries along the overland trade routes, traded and got very wealthy, offered shelter to wandering monks and not sure about trading merchants or caravans . . . so the overland routes were busy too . . .plus there were robbers and piratesThanks professor. I am happy to know the true story but still your argument has left many questions.