More unstructured and flip flopping between views of the politics and economics that underlie changes in current “silk roads”. Connections that bring strategic benefit to multiple interests and shape a development direction.

Overall the book is fact filled, heavily tuned to the Trupist disruptive factors and light on abstractions and overviews that were more central in the previous book. This makes the book not as useful, and harder to draw conclusions from.

I would venture the author should have used a different title and written his true sequel a bit later with more of an integrated abstract view. ( )

Первая книга этой серии «Шелковый путь. Дорога тканей, рабов, идей и религий» оксфордского профессора Питера Франкопана вышла у нас в прошлом году. На самом деле это скорее история всего мира, нежели стран, связанных Великим шелковым путем. Cиквел этого года более сосредоточен на Евразии и вдвое короче, но точно не вдвое хуже. Более того, эта книга крайне важна для понимания текущего момента. Cкорее всего, всей этой ценной информации вы не найдете, если только вы не из МГИМО. Новая книга Франкопана рассказывает как раз о том, что происходит. Ну, правда, вы же не следите за тайскими бизнесменами, китайскими инвесторами с партбилетами, шейхами Залива и аятоллами Ирана? Прочтете и не будете больше удивляться тому, что в РФ не хватает пилотов: XiamenAir предлагает летчикам $400 000 в год. ( )

This was a tough read for me as I am deficient in history. It was chosen by my Newcomers’ Book Club last fall and, unfortunately took me several months to complete.

While the United States is flip-flopping from one administration to the next on foreign policy, China is creating a clear coalition built of neighboring countries and those cash-poor countries that have vital resources or hold the key to trade routes. These coalitiions are often created when China provides loans for infrastructure or resource development.

There is concern about what will happen if the countries cannot pay back these loans – will China suddenly own important infrastructure such as deep water ports, rare earth mines and airports if these poor countries default?

In the meantime, the US is not only flipflopping on foreign policy, aid provided by the US is seen as having too many strings attached. Oftentimes, sanctions are imposed against countries without consideration of the impacts this will have on their trade partners.

Clearly the author feels that the US is being out-strategized by the diplomatic policies of China under the leadership of Xi Jinping.

Luckily the index for this book is comprehensive as it lists countries, leaders, important geographical features and much more. To show the immensity of the impact, I picked out the following affected countries from the index (this is probably not an exhaustive list of every country mentioned) :

From the index: Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates, India, China , Russia, Albania, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bosnia, Brunei, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Congo, Croatia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvadore, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Laos, Libya, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Montenegro, Nepal, Niger, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Sao Tome e Principe, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tonga, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Vatican, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen

I'm giving this four stars, because, while I don't think I will retain much beyond than the main points of this book, it will be a useful reference to look up current events.

This review pertains to the 2020 edition. There is an earlier edition with a slightly different title that was printed before Trump was elected, which, naturally does not analyze his effects on foreign policy. ( )

Rather disappointing after the glorious predecessor. I loved The Silk Roads very much and was thrilled by getting this sequel as a present. However, it was slow, repetitive and boring. I think there is a good read hidden inside, but it should be trimmed down to about 50 pages and heavily edited. ( )

I was really glad to have Frankopan's update on the way the world has moved on since he wrote the first book.

I thought that there was less about Trump than I expected from reading the other reviews. ( )