Life Along the Silk Road
by Susan Whitfield
University of California Press, 1999

Susan Whitfield has chosen to introduce the reader to the history of the Silk Road through vignettes of ten characters' lives. Spanning the years from 750 to 1000, each character describes the events and conditions along the road of his own time.

Five of the characters - the princess, artist, nun, official and widow - are based on historical personages. The others are the typical sorts one might have encountered along the Silk Road - a monk, a soldier or an official. All the details have been culled from contemporary sources.

Whitfield's semi-fictionalized approach makes this a most readable book and the sound research is a good beginning for anyone with an interest in the history of the Silk Road.

The author runs the International Dunhuang Project at the British Library, a database of over 50,000 pre-eleventh century Silk Road manuscripts.