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The Silk Road and Ancient Trade: Crash Course World History
The Silk Road and Ancient Trade: Crash Course World History
The Silk Road—which was not really one road—connected towns, cities, states, and empires across Eurasia through vibrant trade networks, moving goods, ideas, and diseases.
As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.
Think about the following questions as you watch the video
What was the Silk Road?
Why were the nomadic people of Central Asia important for the Silk Road?
How did the Silk Road affect towns and cities along trade routes? Give an example.
Silk was a luxury good. How did it affect ordinary people?
Buddhism was one idea that traveled along the Silk Road trade routes. What are key elements of Mahayana Buddhism?
What was one negative effect of the Silk Road?
: Hi, there, I'm John Green.
: This is Crash Course World History,
: and today we're gonna talk about the Silk Road,
: so called because it was not a road
: and was not made of silk.
: So this is a t-shirt-- it was designed in Belgium
: and contains cotton from both Brazil and Texas,
: which was turned into cloth in China,
: stitched in Haiti, screen-printed in Washington,
: sold to me in Indiana,
: and now that I am too fat to wear it,
: it will soon make its way to Cameroon or Honduras
: or possibly even back to Haiti.
: Can we just pause for a moment to consider
: the astonishing fact that most t-shirts
: see more of the world than most of us do?
: Mr. Green, Mr. Green!
: But t-shirts can't see the world
: because they don't have eyes.
: Look, me from the past, it's difficult for me
: to isolate what I hate most about you
: because there is so much to hate.
: But very near the top is your relentless talent
: for ignoring everything
: that is interesting and beautiful about our species
: in favor of pedantic sniveling
: in which no one loses or gains anything of value.
: I'm gonna go put on a collared shirt,
: 'cause we're here to tackle the big picture.
: (music playing)
: So the Silk Road didn't begin trade,
: but it did radically expand its scope,
: and the connections that were formed
: by mostly unknown merchants
: arguably changed the world
: more than any political or religious leaders.
: It was especially cool if you were rich,
: because you finally had something to spend your money on
: other than temples.
: But even if you weren't rich, the Silk Road reshaped the lives
: of everyone living in Africa and Eurasia,
: as we will see today-- let's go straight to the Thought Bubble.
: As previously mentioned, the Silk Road was not a road.
: It's not like archaeologists working in Uzbekistan
: have uncovered a bunch of yield signs
: and baby-on-board stickers.
: It was an overland route
: where merchants carried goods for trade.
: But it was really two routes-- one that connected
: the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia,
: and one that went from Central Asia to China.
: Further complicating things,
: the Silk Road involved sea routes.
: Many goods reached Rome via the Mediterranean,
: and goods from Central Asia
: found their way across the Pacific
: to Japan and even Java.
: So we shouldn't think of the Silk Road as a road,
: but rather as a network of trade routes.
: But just as now, the goods traveled more
: than the people who traded them.
: Very few traders traversed the entire Silk Road.
: Instead, they'd move back and forth between towns,
: selling to traders who'd take the goods
: further toward their destination,
: with everybody marking up prices along the way.
: So what'd they trade? Well, silk, for starters.
: For millennia, silk was only produced in China.
: It is spun from the cocoons of mulberry-tree-eating worms,
: and the process of silk-making,
: as well as the techniques for raising the worms,
: were closely guarded secrets,
: since the lion's share of China's wealth
: came from silk production.
: The Chinese used silk as fishing line,
: to buy off nomadic raiders to keep things peaceful,
: and to write before they invented paper.
: But as an export, silk was mostly used for clothes.
: Silk clothing feels light in the summer and warm in the winter,
: and until we invented $700 pre-distressed designer jeans,
: decking yourself out in silk was the number-one way
: to show people that you were wealthy.
: Thanks, Thought Bubble-- but the Silk Road
: wasn't all about silk.
: The Mediterranean exported
: such cliché goods as olives,
: olive oil, wine, and mustachioed plumbers.
: China also exported raw materials
: like jade, silver, and iron,
: India exported fine cotton textiles,
: ivory that originated in East Africa
: made its way across the Silk Road,
: and Arabia exported incense and spices and tortoise shells.
: Oh, God, it's a red one, isn't it?
: It's just gonna chase me, I just-- ow!
: Up until now on Crash Course, we've been focused
: on city-dwelling civilizational types,
: but with the growth of the Silk Road,
: the nomadic peoples of Central Asia suddenly become
: much more important to world history.
: Most of Central Asia isn't great for agriculture,
: but it's difficult to conquer, unless you are-- wait for it--
: the Mongols.
: (music playing)
: It also lends itself fairly well to herding,
: and since nomads are definitionally good
: at moving around,
: they're also good at moving stuff
: from point A to point B,
: which makes them good traders.
: Plus, all their travel made them more resistant to diseases.
: One group of such nomads, the Yuezhi,
: were humiliated in battle in the second century BCE
: by their bitter rivals the Xiongnu,
: who turned the Yuezhi's king's skull
: into a drinking cup, in fact.
: And in the wake of that, the Yuezhi migrated to Bactria
: and started the Kushan Empire in what is now
: Afghanistan and Pakistan.
: Although Silk Road trading began
: more than a century before the birth of Jesus,
: it really took off in the second and third centuries CE,
: and the Kushan Empire became a huge hub
: for that Silk Road trade.
: By then, nomads were being eclipsed
: by professional merchants who traveled the Silk Roads,
: often making huge profits,
: but those cities that had been founded by nomadic peoples
: became hugely important.
: They continued to grow
: because most of the trade on the Silk Road
: was by caravan, and those caravans had to stop frequently,
: you know, for, like, food, and water, and prostitutes.
: These towns became fantastically wealthy.
: One, Palmyra, was particularly important,
: because all of the incense and silk that traveled to Rome
: had to go through Palmyra.
: Silk was so popular among the Roman elite
: that the Roman Senate repeatedly tried to ban it,
: complaining about trade imbalances
: caused by the silk trade,
: and also that silk was inadequately modest.
: To quote Seneca the Younger, "I see clothes of silk,
: "if materials that do not hide the body,
: "nor even one's decency,
: can be called clothes."
: He also said of the woman who wears silk,
: "Her husband has no more acquaintance
: "than any outsider or foreigner
: with his wife's body."
: And yet, all attempts to ban silk failed,
: which speaks to how much, even in the ancient world,
: wealth shaped governance.
: And with trade, there was a way of becoming wealthy
: without being a king or a lord
: who takes part of what your citizens produce.
: The merchant class that grew along with the Silk Road
: came to have a lot of political clout,
: and in some ways, that began the tension
: that we still see today between wealth and politics--
: whether it's, you know,
: corporations making large donations
: or Vladimir Putin periodically jailing billionaires.
: Mr. Putin, I just want to state for the record
: that I did not mean that in any way,
: I was... Stan wrote that joke.
: Oh, it's time for the Open Letter.
: An Open Letter to billionaires.
: But first, let's see what's in the Secret Compartment today.
: Oh, it's some fake silk,
: the stuff that put real silk out of business.
: Dear billionaires, I've wrapped myself
: in the finest of polyester
: so that you will take my message seriously.
: Here at Crash Course, we've done a lot of research
: into our demographics,
: and our show is watched primarily by grammar nazis,
: Muggle quidditch players, people who have a test tomorrow,
: and billionaires.
: And I have a message for you, billionaires--
: it will never be enough.
: Your relentless yearning is going to kill us all.
: Best wishes, John Green.
: Speaking of billionaires,
: the goods that traveled on the Silk Road
: really only changed the lives of rich people.
: Did the Silk Road affect the rest of us?
: Yes, for three reasons.
: First, wider economic impact.
: Relatively few people could afford silk,
: but a lot of people devoted their lives to making that silk.
: And as the market for silk grew,
: more and more people chose to go into silk production
: rather than doing something else with their lives.
: Second, the Silk Road didn't just trade luxury goods.
: In fact, arguably,
: the most important thing traded along the Silk Road-- ideas.
: For example, the Silk Road
: was the primary route for the spread of Buddhism.
: When we last saw the Buddha's Eightfold Path
: to escaping the cycle of suffering and desire
: that's inherent to humans,
: it was beginning to dwindle in India.
: But through contacts with other cultures and traditions,
: Buddhism grew and flourished and became
: one of the great religious traditions of the world.
: The variation of Buddhism that took root
: in China, Korea, Japan, and Central Asia
: is known as Mahayana Buddhism,
: and it differed from the original teachings of the Buddha
: in many ways, but one that was fundamental.
: For Mahayana Buddhists, the Buddha was divine.
: I mean, we can-- and religious historians do--
: fight over the exact definition of divine,
: but in Mahayana Buddhism, there's no question
: that the Buddha is venerated to a greater degree.
: The idea of nirvana also transformed
: from a release from that cycle of suffering and desire
: to something much more heavenly and, frankly, more fun.
: And in some versions of Mahayana Buddhism,
: there are lots of different heavens,
: each more awesome than the last.
: Rather than focusing on the fundamental fact of suffering,
: Mahayana Buddhism offered the hope
: that through worship of the Buddha
: or one of the many Bodhisattvas--
: holy people who could have achieved nirvana,
: but chose to hang out on Earth with us
: because they're super-nice--
: one could attain a good afterlife.
: Many merchants on the Silk Road
: became strong supporters of monasteries,
: which in turn became convenient way stations for caravans.
: And by endowing the monasteries, rich merchants were buying
: a form of supernatural insurance.
: Monks who lived in the monasteries
: would pray for the success of trade missions
: and the health of their patrons.
: It was win-win, especially when you consider
: that one of the central materials used
: in Mahayana Buddhist rituals...
: is silk.
: And the third reason the Silk Road changed all our lives--
: worldwide interconnectedness of populations
: led to the spread of disease.
: Measles and smallpox traveled along it,
: as did bubonic plague,
: which came from the East to the West
: in 534, 750, and-- most devastatingly-- in 1346.
: This last plague, known as the Black Death,
: resulted in the largest population decimation
: in human history,
: with nearly half of Europeans dying in a four-year period.
: A sizable majority of people living in Italy died,
: as did two-thirds of Londoners.
: And it quite possibly wouldn't have happened
: without the Silk Road.
: If you were living in London in the 14th century,
: you probably didn't blame the Silk Road trade
: for your community's devastation,
: but it played a role.
: If you look at it that way,
: the interconnectedness fostered by the Silk Road
: affected way, way more people
: than just those rich enough to buy silk,
: just as today's globalization offers
: both promise and threat to each of us.
: Next week, we'll talk about Julius Caesar,
: and in what situation, if any,
: it's okay to stab your friend in the gut.
: Until then, thanks for watching.
: Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller,
: our script supervisor is Danica Johnson,
: our graphics team is Thought Bubble,
: and the show is written by my high school history teacher,
: Raoul Meyer, and myself.
: Last week's Phrase of the Week was "Kim Kardashian."
: If you didn't like it,
: suggest better Phrases of the Week in comments.
: Every week, I take one of your suggestions
: and find a way to squeeze it into the new episode.
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: Also, the beloved-- and, I promise, not fictitious-- Stan
: has agreed to start tweeting, so that's exciting.
: Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown,
: don't forget to be awesome.
: Oh, hey, and remember that Mongols shirt
: from the beginning of the episode?
: In addition to being a joke, it's a shirt!
: So many of you requested Mongols shirts
: that we are giving them to you!
: They are now available for pre-order at dftba.com,
: link in the video info below,
: so you can show your love for Crash Course,