Book Launch - The Silk Road: A Living History
Take a journey through history and cultures, exploring ancient civilisations and contemporary nations
I’m delighted to announce that my new book - The Silk Road: A Living History - is now available for pre-order and ship later this year.
The book will present 150 photographs taken primarily on an overland journey I took from London to Beijing in 2019. By car, bus, train, ferry, horse and camel, I travelled 40,000km across 16 countries photographing some of the varied people, places and cultures found across Eurasia. By travelling over land, I hoped to gain a deeper understanding of the similarities between different cultures and learn more about what connects us.
The purpose was to develop an outdoor exhibition that would allow visitors to travel the Silk Road through photographs. In 2022, the first of these was shown in King’s Cross, London. This was followed by another in 2022 in Toronto.
The Book
Like the exhibition, the book aims to celebrate the diversity of cultural expressions found along the Silk Road; highlight examples of how historical practices, rituals and customs live on today; and also reveal some of the connections between what appear at first glance to be very different cultures. It also seeks to engender interest and understanding between distant cultures and challenge perceptions of less well-known and understood parts of the world.
Photographs from Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, India, China and elsewhere feature and will be accompanied by some of my travel writing as well as a preface by a well-known Silk Road historian.
The route I took from Europe to Asia
The book will be published by Hemeria, a French publisher who specialise in high quality photography books so the final product should be something really beautiful; hopefully these images provide a flavour of that.
Although some details may change, the below summarises the intent for print production and delivery:
Size: 24x29cm
Images: 160 photographs
Pages: 208
Cover: Case bound with cloth spine
Language: English or in French
Available for pre-order: From mid-April
Shipping: late August/early September.
Cost: €45 + delivery but there are discounts for higher volume purchases.
If you are interested in buying a book; bulk orders; hosting a talk with the author or would like to learn more, please contact me here.
Giving Back
I am delighted to share that all my royalties for this book will be donated to the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF). Established in 1967, AKF works with disadvantaged communities in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to address the root causes of poverty, improve the quality of life and build a future where we can all thrive together.
A spread from the Pakistan section
The Silk Road
The Silk Road, the name given to the numerous trading routes that connected China and the West, was first established during the days of the Roman Empire. For several centuries it facilitated the exchange of goods, ideas, religions and technologies across 1000s of miles, shaping and changing the world as we know it. While it lost its prominence to new maritime trade routes by the 1600s, its legacy still endures. China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’, the $900 billion double trade corridor to reopen channels between China and the West, can be seen as its 21st century successor.
“Unlike the rockier Pamirs to the west that burst out of the earth’s surface in dark browns and deep ochres, the mountains here are softer and glow purple, pink and blue.”
Extract from the book
A 3/4 page spread from India
From a young age I have been fascinated in Silk Road history. My first job was in Beijing and on flights from London, I would stare out the window and wonder about the cultures in-between these two ends of Eurasia. The seed of an idea about an overland journey was planted. Eleven years later, I set off.
“Kyrgyzstan is a nation of vast, gentle and sweeping valleys and appears still a land before time. The sense of space, under the huge dome of the blue sky, is profound and almost spiritual. I’ve visited very few places on earth that feel like genuine wildernesses, this is one of them.”
Extract from the book
A double page spread from Uzbekistan
Related Content
Learn more about this project from a talk and a podcast I did in when the exhibition launched in London in 2019.
Acknowledgements
The book is kindly supported by the Aga Khan Foundation. Established in 1967, the Foundation works with poor and marginalised communities in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to improve the quality of life, promote pluralism, and enhance self-reliance. Together with its sister agencies of the Aga Khan Development Network, it has been active in Central Asia for nearly 30 years, and for almost a century in India and Pakistan. Working alongside governments, the AKDN has been a long-term partner in the development of Afghanistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Pakistan, India and, more recently, Kazakhstan. In the last 30 years, the AKDN has invested and channelled significant resources into the economic, social and cultural development of Central Asia with the promotion of pluralism and women’s empowerment central to those efforts.
I’d also like to thank Wild Frontiers - Silk Road travel specialists - for their invaluable travel advice.