Professor David William Kim of the College of Liberal Arts, who is an active member of the Royal Historical Society (UK), has recently published his latest research findings through Vernon Press, a world-renowned publisher specializing in humanities and social sciences, in Washington, D.C., USA (€104). While the traditional concept of the Silk Road evokes images of places, cultures, and people exchanging exotic goods and legendary treasures, this book reveals the historical fact that the Silk Road served as a unique channel for the transnational spread of ethnic groups, religious ideas, customs, and ideologies, beyond mere trade and political interests. Personal or communal ideas about the Silk Road underwent rapid changes due to external influences, particularly highlighting a new perspective on how Sacred Communities interacted, coexisted, competed, and influenced one another over the centuries. Research incorporating political, power, conquest, and assimilation dimensions of cultural differences, regional traditions, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been recognized as a new approach by scholars in fields such as human migration, social change, regional development, psychology, anthropology, religious studies, modern economics, and public policy. The following is a brief introduction to some of the content from the original text (Silk Road Footprints: Transnational Transmission of Sacred Thoughts and Historical Legacy).

The Silk Road generally evokes images of places, cultures and peoples linked by exchanging exotic goods and fabled treasures. However, the notion of the subject often disregards the historical fact that the Silk Road routes functioned as a unique channel for trade and political benefits and the transnational spread of religious ideas, ethnic customs, and ideologies. The personal or community beliefs of the Silk Road changed radically due to the impact of external influences. The Silk Road Footprints: Transnational Transmission of Sacred Thoughts and Historical Legacy identifies the view that sacred communities interacted, coexisted, competed, and influenced each other over long periods. These include those local traditions and economics that evolved in ancient China, the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asian (including Korea and Japan), and the subsequent larger traditions that arose in the region—Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Shintoism, and Islam—and the shamanistic and animistic traditions of various nomadic peoples in the cross-cultural dimensions of politics, power, conquest, and assimilation.

The transcultural history of sacred thoughts and historical legacy along the Silk Road of human movements from around the Roman civilisation era (753 BCE–476 CE) is a remarkable illustration of how beliefs and civilisations often reflect the broad patterns of synthesis and transformation rather than clash. This text indicates that Asia (South, Southeast and East Asia, and China), one of the most pluralistic ethnic regions in the world, has become a center of attention as a metaphysical bridge between culture and civilisation. The creative approach of the Silk Road and the ideological transmission evidence the implication that the local groups developed under a new environment of socio-sacred principles, exotic traditions, and political and economic influences.

For further details, see: https://vernonpress.com/book/2250