Silk Road was a network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian
landmass. Since second century B.C., China exported silk to different
countries in the west as far as the countries on the Mediterranean Coast
along different routes. Turkey officially launched an undersea commuter
train (the Marmaray) connecting the Asian and European sides of Istanbul on
Tuesday, 29 October 2013 It seems that the Marmaray is more than just a
Turkish project to improve public transportation in Istanbul, but part of the
Silk Road, which has served humanity for centuries, connecting Asia and
Europe. Moreover, this project will revive historical silk road. That road was
not only caravan road but a road that links Western and Eastern civilisations.
Nowadays China is also planning to make serious investment to revive the
New Silk Road that will run through Central Asia and continue into Europe
facilitating improved transport and trade. Globalisation generally refers to
the increased interdependence of the world's economies signified by the
circulation of information, money, people and goods across national
boundaries. It has of late, given rise to the domination of world's market by a
selected number of transnational corporations. However, since time
immemorial, different countries were related to one another through
geographical spread of ideas, social norms and trading commodities. This
pre-modern phase of globalisation is known as archaic globalization. In the
following years we will see that the new projects realised by the countries on
the historical Silk Road will play a key role on the new integration process
between the east and west as well as the north and the south. The papers in
this book invite us to rethink and focus on Silkroad.