Teaching the Silk Road: A Guide for College Teachers

The romance of the Silk Road journey, with its exotic locales and luxury goods, still excites the popular imagination. But study of the trade routes between China and central Asia that flourished from about 200 BCE to the 1500’s can also greatly enhance contemporary higher education curricula. Indeed, with people, plants, animals, ideas, and beliefs traversing it, the Silk Road is both a metaphor of globalization and an early example of it.

Teaching the Silk Road highlights the reasons to incorporate this material into a variety of courses and shares resources to facilitate that process. It is intended for those who are not Silk Road or Asian specialists but who wish to embrace a global history and civilizations perspective in teaching, as opposed to the more traditional approach that focuses on cultures in isolation. The book explores both classroom and experiential learning and is intentionally interdisciplinary. Each essay focuses on pedagogical strategies or themes that teachers can use to bring the Silk Road into the classroom.

"This collection of essays and personal reflections allows the reader to listen in on a relaxed conversation on teaching the topic of the Silk Road. It offers a nice blueprint for integrating the Silk Road into new or existing curricula."— J. Michael Farmer, author of The Talent of Shu: Qiao Zhou and the Intellectual World of Early Medieval Sichuan

Jacqueline M. Moore is Professor of History at Austin College. She is the author of several books, including Cow Boys and Cattle Men: Class and Masculinities on the Texas Frontier, 1865-1900. Rebecca Woodward Wendelken is Associate Professor of History at Methodist University.

Jacqueline M. Moore is Professor of History at Austin College. She is the author of several books, including Cow Boys and Cattle Men: Class and Masculinities on the Texas Frontier, 1865–1900.

Rebecca Woodward Wendelken is Associate Professor of History at Methodist University.