An invitation to The Silk Road: On Jeong Su-il's The Silk Road encyclopedia

摘要

The term Silk Road often conjures images composed of ancient caravan traders traveling over the vast regions of remote lands, picturesque scenes of mountains and deserts, foreign music and dance, exotic costumes, and adventures. Those popular images of the Silk Road were often constructed by documentary films on TV, and travel logs in journals and newspapers. However, it is not so well known that the Silk Road is not entirely remote and foreign, but rather part of our Korean cultural and historical heritage. Furthermore, we would do well to reconsider our past in terms of the inter-cultural or inter-civilizational exchanges occurring on the Silk Road to have a better understanding of it. In this respect, The Silk Road Encyclopedia (2016) is a significant scholarly achievement, and a work that will promote the studies of Silk Road.