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Why Was The Silk Roads Important In World History

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The Silk Roads are incredibly important to world history. The Silk Roads were a network of many roads generally going East from China to Rome in the West. The connections formed along the Silk Roads transformed the world in a drastic way. They radically extended the reach of trade, spread and adapted many of today’s modern religions, and created immunities as a result of disease exchanges. The Silk Roads hold significance in world history due to those three factors.

The Silk Roads are most commonly known for trade and commodity exchanges. While silk from China was the most popular export, in some instances it became quite controversial in the Roman Empire. Evidence of this is “I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one’s …show more content…

Diseases such as measles travelled along the Silk Roads, as did the Bubonic plague. In addition to disease, travellers along the Silk Roads also exchanged immunities. Afro Eurasian societies predominantly obtained diseases through their animals, and exchanges along the Silk Roads thus enabled the swapping of immunities to such diseases. Christian argues that these shared immune systems could explain the reason for Eurasian colonialisms becoming so successful, as the populations that lacked immunities to foreign diseases died in the first contacts with invaders.

The Silk Roads had a significant role in world history. Arguably trade along the Silk Roads played the most significant role in China’s developments as a society and culture. Through the use of envoys, missionaries and diplomats, the Silk Roads unfolded political and economic relationships between Eastern and Western civilizations. Not only were the Silk Roads vital to economic trade, but they were also a route for cultural and disease trade. These developments have had a substantial impact on world

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