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A banker in London sends the latest stock info
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to his colleagues in Hong Kong in less than a second.
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With a single click, a customer in New York
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orders electronics made in Beijing,
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transported across the ocean within days
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by cargo plane or container ship.
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The speed and volume at which goods and information
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move across the world today is unprecedented in history.
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But global exchange itself is older than we think,
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reaching back over 2,000 years along a 5,000 mile stretch
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known as the Silk Road.
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The Silk Road wasn't actually a single road,
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but a network of multiple routes
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that gradually emerged over centuries,
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connecting to various settlements and to each other
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thread by thread.
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The first agricultural civilizations were isolated places
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in fertile river valleys,
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their travel impeded by surrounding geography
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and fear of the unknown.
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But as they grew,
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they found that the arid deserts and steps on their borders
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were inhabited, not by the demons of folklore,
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but nomadic tribes on horseback.
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The Scythians, who ranged from Hungary to Mongolia,
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had come in contact with the civilizations of
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Greece, Egypt, India and China.
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These encounters were often less than peaceful.
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But even through raids and warfare,
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as well as trade and protection of traveling merchants
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in exchange for tariffs,
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the nomads began to spread goods, ideas and technologies
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between cultures with no direct contact.
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One of the most important strands of this growing web
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was the Persian Royal Road,
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completed by Darius the First in the 5th century BCE.
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Stretching nearly 2,000 miles from the Tigris River to the Aegean Sea,
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its regular relay points allowed goods and messages
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to travel at nearly 1/10 the time it would take a single traveler.
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With Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia,
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and expansion into Central Asia through capturing cities like Samarkand,
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and establishing new ones like Alexandria Eschate,
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the network of Greek, Egyptian, Persian and Indian culture and trade
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extended farther east than ever before,
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laying the foundations for a bridge between China and the West.
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This was realized in the 2nd century BCE,
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when an ambassador named Zhang Qian,
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sent to negotiate with nomads in the West,
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returned to the Han Emperor with tales of
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sophisticated civilizations, prosperous trade
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and exotic goods beyond the western borders.
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Ambassadors and merchants were sent towards
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Persia and India to trade silk and jade for horses and cotton,
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along with armies to secure their passage.
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Eastern and western routes gradually linked together
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into an integrated system spanning Eurasia,
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enabling cultural and commercial exhange
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farther than ever before.
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Chinese goods made their way to Rome,
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causing an outflow of gold that led to a ban on silk,
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while Roman glassware was highly prized in China.
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Military expeditions in Central Asia
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also saw encounters between Chinese and Roman soldiers.
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Possibly even transmitting crossbow technology
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to the Western world.
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Demand for exotic and foreign goods
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and the profits they brought,
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kept the strands of the Silk Road in tact,
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even as the Roman Empire disintegrated
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and Chinese dynasties rose and fell.
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Even Mongolian hoards, known for pillage and plunder,
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actively protected the trade routes, rather than disrupting them.
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But along with commodities, these routes also enabled
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the movement of traditions, innovations, ideologies and languages.
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Originating in India, Buddhism migrated to China and Japan
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to become the dominant religion there.
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Islam spread from the Arabian Penninsula into South Asia,
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blending with native beliefs
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and leading to new faiths, like Sikhism.
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And gunpowder made its way from China to the Middle East
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forging the futures of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughul Empires.
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In a way, the Silk Road's success led to its own demise
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as new maritime technologies, like the magnetic compass,
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found their way to Europe, making long land routes obsolete.
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Meanwhile, the collapse of Mongol rule
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was followed by China's withdrawal from international trade.
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But even though the old routes and networks did not last,
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they had changed the world forever
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and there was no going back.
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Europeans seeking new maritime routes
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to the riches they knew awaited in East Asia
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led to the Age of Exploration
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and expansion into Africa and the Americas.
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Today, global interconnectedness shapes our lives like never before.
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Canadian shoppers buy t-shirts made in Bangladesh,
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Japanese audiences watch British television shows,
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and Tunisians use American software to launch a revolution.
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The impact of globalization on culture and economy is indisputable.
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But whatever its benefits and drawbacks,
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it is far from a new phenomenon.
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And though the mountains, deserts and oceans
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that once separated us
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are now circumvented through super sonic vehicles,
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cross-continental communication cables,
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and signals beamed through space
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rather than caravans traveling for months,
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none of it would have been possible
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without the pioneering cultures
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whose efforts created the Silk Road:
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history's first world wide web.
Rami Alafandi
03:44 "forging the futures of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughul Empires"
There is mistake in this translation to Arabic " مزورا تاريخ الامبراطوريات العثمانية والصفوية والمغولية"
The correct translation is " ليصنع مستقبل الامبراطوريات العثمانية والصفوية والمغولية"