The Silk Road: Key Papers (2 Vols)

Valerie Hansen is Professor of History at Yale University (since 1998). She teaches courses on Traditional China (2000 BC-AD 1600), Voyages in World History to 1500 and The Silk Road Rediscovered. Her books include Voyages in World History (with Ken Curtis) (Wadsworth CENGAGE, 2010), The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600 (W.W. Norton & Co., 2000), Negotiating Daily Life in Traditional China: How Ordinary People Used Contracts, 600-1400 (YUP, 1995), and The Silk Road: A New History (OUP, forthcoming).

Professional and scholarly

Introduction; SECTION I: The beginnings of the Silk Road; 1. The Development of Trade Between The Roman Empire and the East Under Augustus; 2. On the Question of Silk in pre-Han Eurasia; 3. The Desert Crossing of Hsüan-Tsang, 630 A.D; 4. Land route or sea route? Commentary on the study of the paths of transmission and areas in which Buddhism was disseminated during the Han period; SECTION II: The Kushan Empire and Beyond; 5. La Vieille Route Reconsidered: Alternative Paths for Early Transmission of Buddhism Beyond the Borderlands of South Asia; 6. New Light on Ancient Afghanistan: the decipherment of Bactrian; 7. Life in Third-fourth Century Cad’ota: A Survey of Information gathered from the Prakrit documents found north of Minfeng (Niya); 8. Some Comments on Third-Century Shan-shan and the History of Buddhism; SECTION III: Kuche, Kumarajiva, and Broader Issues of Translation; 9. Perspectives in the Study of Chinese Buddhism; 10. India and China: Observations on Cultural Borrowing; 11. On the Interrelationship of the Tocharian Dialects; 12. The Position of Tocharian among the Other Indo-European Languages; SECTION IV: Samarkand and the Sogdians; 13. The Sogdian merchants in China and India; 14. The Self-Image of the Sogdians; 15. Wall Paintings from a House with a Granary. Panjikent, 1st Quarter of the Eighth Century A.D.; 16. New Work on the Sogdians, the most Important Traders on the Silk Road, A.D. 500-1000; 17. The Migrations and Settlements of the Sogdians in the Northern Dynasties, Sui and Tang; SECTION V: Turfan; 18. A Concise History of the Turfan Oasis and its Exploration; 19. The Impact of the Silk Road Trade on a Local Community: The Turfan Oasis, 500-800; 20. Women in Turfan During the Sixth to Eighth Centuries: A Look at their Activities Outside the Home; 21. Textiles et tissus sur la route de la soie: eléments pour une géographie de la production et des échanges; 22. Sasanian and Arab-Sasanian Silver Coins from Turfan: Their Relationship to International Trade and the Local Economy; 23. Money in Eastern Central Asia before AD 800; SECTION VI: Dunhuang and Khotan; 24. Multilingualism in Tun-huang; 25. Silk Road or Paper Road; 26. Tang; 27. The Khotanese in Dunhuang; 28. On the taxation system of pre-Islamic Khotan; 29. The Nature of the Dunhuang Library Cave and the Reasons for Its Sealing; Index