new delhi jun 8 if you get to buy articles like hui muslim hats tibetan bags kazakh carpets and colourful qiang dresses or savour dishes like roujiamo lamina and laghman which region would it be the silk road which is not a place but regarded as a journey from the edges of the mediterranean to the central plains of china through high mountains and inhospitable deserts a new book the silk road a biography from prehistory to the present day authored by jonathan clements offers a chronological outline of the regions development and also provides an introduction to its languages literature and arts clements lays stress on the fascinating historical sites which feature on any visitors itinerary besides on the writings and reactions of travellers through the centuries he argues that historical accounts have an inevitable bias towards civilisations that leave a footprint and the silk road therefore is a slippery historical object entire civilisations have risen and fallen on the silk road leaving perilously little evidence of themselves the book published by speaking tiger says for thousands of years the history of the silk road has been a travellers history of brief encounters in desert towns snowbound passes and nameless forts it was the conduit that first brought buddhism christianity and islam into china and the site of much of the great game between 19thcentury empires today its central section encompasses several former soviet republics and the chinese autonomous region of xinjiang the ancient trade route controversially crosses the sites of several forgotten kingdoms buried in sand and only now revealing their secrets fully experiencing the silk road requires more than a fridge magnet from the gift shop break shaanxi bread into small chunks and cast it into your mutton soup hear the call to prayer outside a kashgar mosque feel your aching calves as you struggle up the steps to a buddhist grotto smell the faint rasp of sand in the air even in a modern city and then your souvenirs will truly be keepsakes reminding you of those memories clements writes more zmn ans