By: Darcy Hansen on October 13, 2019
Tucked in amongst foreboding structures of world financial institutions lies St. Margaret Lothbury, a small Church of England parish church established 1185 C.E., burned in 1666, rebuilt and reinstated in 1690 C.E. The worship space is cozy and decked out in some of the finest 17th-century wood carved elements. The sturdy pews are darkly stained,…
By: Jenn Burnett on October 13, 2019
I recently returned from a trip to London and Oxford. This was my first proper trip to England and I went with a deep curiosity of what might feel familiar to my Canadian/Australian experiences and what would seem different. I would compare my sentiments to those of trying to understand my parents. While they are…
By: John Muhanji on October 13, 2019
It is incredible how Peter Frankopan, a senior research fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, and a historian, brings out the silk road world model that is taking shape and has been from the ancient period. Just as the Quaker church has been evolving from its inception of the 17th century, the silk road has also…
By: Mary Mims on October 12, 2019
As a youth, Peter Frankopan was disenchanted by the version of history he learned as he studied the map of the world. Frankopan was uneasy about the relentlessly narrow geographic focus of his classes at school, which concentrated solely on western Europe and the United States and left most of the rest of the world…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on October 12, 2019
The Silk Road is a book about the new history of the world. The author shares with us that to truly understand new history, we must first understand the astounding past and the history of the nations.[1] Frankopan’s focus was looking at the past not from the perspective of the winners of history, but instead…
By: Simon Bulimo on October 12, 2019
THE QUEST OF READING A BOOK Systematic reading of a book is very important to anyone who wants to understand and apply the book into his or her life. What most people lack is the kind of methods to be used in knowing how to read a book? Adler in his book has given the…
By: Digby Wilkinson on October 12, 2019
Until recently, writing history without acknowledging ones cultural biases was a relatively simple matter. Now, however, in the age of the internet and global perspectives, such actions are not only unacceptable, but they are also immediately challengeable. This blog site we write in is live to the world, and it is read, analysed and critiqued…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on October 11, 2019
Frankopan’s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World links ancient Greece and Rome to what we now call the Middle East (perhaps more accurately the Near East). After that, Frankopan locates the geographical and historical strategic epicenter of the globe somewhere between the Middle East and Central Asia. These two areas were linked…
By: Chris Pollock on October 11, 2019
The other day I was in London, UK (!) out for a walk on the other side of the Thames River. I wasn’t wasting time; I was wandering aimlessly with curiosity. I had about an hour or so before I was to meet a friend who I had served with as a missionary about 20…
By: Wallace Kamau on October 11, 2019
There is an interesting story in East Africa that Swahili language was born along the East African coast through the interaction of the indigenous African Bantu language group with the Arabs. The story goes that Swahili is healthy in Tanzania and Zanzibar, fell sick when it got to Kenya, died in Uganda and was buried…
By: Tammy Dunahoo on October 11, 2019
Chess is believed to have originated in Eastern India, c. 280–550, in the Gupta Empire, where its early form in the 6th century was known as chaturaṅga (Sanskrit: चतुरङ्ग), literally four divisions [of the military] – infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariotry, represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively. Thence it spread eastward and westward along the Silk Road.[1] While reading The…
By: Karen Rouggly on October 10, 2019
I was never a gangly teenager. Sure, I was awkward, and unsure, and brash, but never gangly. My husband, however, was very gangly. While I never knew him in that time, I see pictures that go from boyish bowl cuts to all neck with a protruding adam’s apple in the span of one school year.…
By: Andrea Lathrop on October 10, 2019
Disorienting. This is the best word I can find to describe The Silk Roads and its effect upon me. Frankopan takes on a mammoth challenge to tell the long, convoluted history of the silk roads throughout Asia and the Middle East and to “inspire those who read this book to look at history in a different…
By: Harry Edwards on October 10, 2019
Reading this new historical tome by Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads reminded me of my favorite quote which sums up the atrocities in the Middle Ages: “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”1 It’s a gruesome picture but in many ways accurate. Frankopan’s project…
By: Mario Hood on October 10, 2019
At one point in the not so distant past, there was one view of history. The dominant power largely determined that view. In his book The Silk Road, Peter Frankopan, a Senior research fellow at Worcester College and the director of the Centre for Byzantine Research from Oxford University, sets out to rewrite history or…
By: Nancy Blackman on October 10, 2019
All photos courtesy of Chris Chan Shim (@royyaldog on Instagram) Do you want to skim the surface with idle chat as you size me up wondering where I’m from? Do you care that I have to check the “Other” box every single time! No frustration here. Nope. How much of this book –…
By: Greg Reich on October 9, 2019
As a father I promised myself that I would not default to the common response “because I said so” that my father often gave me when I was a teenager trying to negotiate less stringent rules as I grew older. I can’t say I was 100 percent successful but the majority of the time as…
By: Jer Swigart on October 9, 2019
I was in the second grade when my habits of reading were shaped. The program was called “Book-It” and the method was designed around repetition and quantity. The idea was that competition was the ideal lever to pull in order to generate children who were fond of reading. That, if we learned to read, with…
By: John Muhanji on October 8, 2019
It has always been a practice by my Kenyan tribe to take their time to do something in life. They have always believed that hurrying to do something is a waste of your energy, for you will find yourself at the same place you were. This was a practice in the early period of life…
By: Rev Jacob Bolton on October 8, 2019
This past summer has been one of great transition for my family. We moved from the New York City area to near Washington DC, changing jobs, schools, careers, and homes. Though at times quite difficult, this transition has provided us with many new opportunities. The opportunity for me to craft my pastoral identity in a…
