Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present by Christopher I. BeckwithMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is one of the most in depth books regarding the various nomadic tribes within the Silk Roads. It weaves a very complex story of warfare and trade. This is coloured even more confusing by various different sources used over the centuries being convoluted and confused for various reasons. The only issue I have with this book is the use of Wade-Giles system to write Chinese words - but also making anyone who didn't study linguistics very confused with the explanations which seem to only make sense to very narrow specialists and rarely did it mean anything more than 'it sounds like x now, it probably sounded like y back then and because of z reason.
Other than this mild criticism it's a very valuable book, especially since it's such a good price. Just a caution that you'll be reading footnotes for 40% of the time you are reading this book.
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