Beyond the Silk Roads

Magnus Marsden is Professor of Social Anthropology and Director of the Sussex Asia Centre in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex. He is the author of the prize-winning Living Islam: Muslim Religious Experience in Pakistan's North-West Frontier (2005), Fragments of the Afghan Frontier (with B. D. Hopkins, 2012), and Trading Worlds (2016).

• Introduction. Beyond the silk roads; 1. 'Take your help away and leave us in peace!' The anthropology of geopolitics as lived; 2. Inter-Asian corridor of connectivity (1): The Eurasian World – China, Russia, Ukraine and Western Europe; 3. Inter-Asian corridor of connectivity (2): West Asia – China, the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey; 4. Welcome to Yiwu, China international trade city!' everyday life in a Chinese commercial node; 5. Minorities, commerce and the legacy of Muslim Asia's urban cosmopolitanism: Afghanistan's Hindus and Sikhs; 6. An alternative Eurasian economic geography: Afghanistan's role in long-distance trade; 7. Afghan restaurants in Inter-Asian Worlds: Prestige, information pooling and cross-cultural exchange in long-distance trade; Conclusion. Geopolitics, critical responsiveness and navigational agency in Eurasian connectivity.

'Beyond the Silks Roads is a timely, original, and deeply researched portrait of the role of Afghan traders in forging new and important linkages among regions in Asia and to global circuits of exchange. Marsden's fascinating multi-sited ethnographic research brings this story to life, revealing an unexpected but crucial dimension of inter-Asian connections.' Robert D. Crews, Stanford University