Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Another Hopkirk Gem December 17, 2007
I have a weakness for Peter Hopkirk. He could write about dishwater and I would be enthralled. This outstanding writer serves up another tour de force about historic goings-on in the ruins of oases along the old Silk Road in western China. While Hopkirk pulls no punches in labeling as thievery the deeds of some of the explorers who ventured there, nor does he engage in the oh-so-trendy blanket condemnation of their activities that some of the more politically correct reviewers here would desire. Hopkirk just tells it as it is and if you want to think well or ill of these adventurers, well, that's your call. While it's true that they stole treasures from the indigenous population, it is naivety to think that the inhabitants didn't plunder or let rot many of the scrolls and murals that existed there themselves. Many priceless artifacts that might otherwise be lost, instead rest securely in western museums. My bet is that many of them will be returned to China by and by. In any case, Hopkirk writes a thrilling, compelling book that enlightens the reader about one of the most forbidding places on earth and how a few intrepid men risked their lives and their comfort to explore and exploit it. All of Hopkirk's books read like thriller novels, only they are true. After you read one of his books you want to be on the next plane to Kashgar.
The silk road revealed January 27, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Hopkrik takes a break for his usual Great Game stories to explore the Central Asian deserts that have long been forgotten. This book includes a brief introduction to the Silk Road and China,s relations with Barbarians. The bulk of the book is focused on the explorers who penetrated its mysteries and their tales. From Sven Hedin to Aurel Stien explorers were removing the treasures of this hidden landscape. These treasures unlocked
important history until the Chinese decided to prevent their history from being pilfered away to foreign museums. For those who are curious about archeology or just love Hopkrik this is a great book. It is not up to par with his usual stories that everyone would enjoy so read selectively.
Archeothefts in Central Asia September 2, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Foreign Devils on the Silk Road written in 1980 by the now best-selling author of The Great Game Peter Hopkirk can rightfully be annoverated among classics of archeological history such as Ceram's "Gods, Graves and Scholars". This concise but extremelly well detailed (journalistic cut is evident!) work through brief biographies and excerpts of long travels and explorations plunges us into archeological surveys carried out by Westeners in Central Asia Tarim basin from the 1890's to the 1930's. In that period archeologists and explorers were the heros of the day and names such as Sven Hedin, Aurel Stein, Paul Pelliot and Albert von le Coq were well known. After the closure of Chinese bounderies to foreigners in the 1930's these ante litteram Indiana Jones were forgotten and Serindian culture and Gandahara art only captured scholarly interest. Today all archeological digs in the Middle and Far East have been re-evalutated and Western and harbouring countries public opinion now believe great damage has been done to many historical sites expecially in those cases in which archeological artifacts have been subtracted and removed to Western Museums. All the tombraiders of this book behaved exactly this way even if the times and the habits of the period consented it. But ask a Chinese today....
However, if we suspend moral judgement the adventures and biographies described are incredibly entertaining. From their juvenile dreams, to their meticulous organization we follow the archeothieves through the magnificent and frightful landscapes of the Taklamakan Desert among buried towns and cave temples full of brillant frescos and ancient manuscripts. We meet sleaky forgers and bribable guardians of ancient libraries (Tun-huang manuscripts all come from here), while we face episodes of danger and heroism. I read the book in less than two days, I refreshed my shaky Central Asian culture, I remembered how much I loved Ceram's, Wooley's and Carter's books and I gave Harrison Ford's semblance to Sven Hedin! Enjoy it!
Yes Virginia, there really was an Indiana Jones July 21, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is about the first explorers and archaeologists to make it to the most remote parts of Central Asia, where, in areas like Taklamakan, once upon a time before climatic changes, prosperous Buddhist, Nestorian Christian, Chinese, Greek and Hindu civilizations thrived along the trade routes between Cathay and ancient Rome. Taklamakan was surrounded on three sides by vast mountain ranges almost twice as high as the European alps; on the last side was the vast Gobi desert. A hundred years ago, there were no roads, cars, airplanes, radios, or GPS and few water sources to make travel easier, but rather hostile natives, wolves, 130F heat, and -25F cold to make travel there even less inviting. It was so remote that its name in Turki means that "If you go in, you won't come out."
As the British approached Central Asia from India, and the Russians from the North, and rumors of lost civilizations, treasure palaces and pleasure domes made their way to Europe and Japan; intrepid adventurers explored - and carted off by camel caravan - the remains of these civilizations.
The explorers were larger than life: Sir Aurel Stein, an Anglo-Hungarian, Sven Hedin, a Swede, Albert von Le Coq, a German of Huguenot origin, Paul Pelliot a French philologist with a photographic memory, Count Otani, a Japanese Buddhist monk, close relative of the Emperor and probable spy, and Professor Langdon Warner of Harvard. Last but far from least, is a semi-literate tribesman whose endeavors as an artful forger in a Central Asian oasis made fools of Oxford's best philologists. All this makes for an incomparable read.
How often does one read of a British diplomat urging that crossing a 18,000 ft peak and a 3 mile glacier three times during a blizzard to save the life of a frost-bit fellow traveler he met on the way be recognized by making the hero a Knight of the Hospitaliers of Saint John of Jerusalem?
Hopkirk also questions and describes the ethics of removing these treasures from their Central Asian homes to store them in vaults in London, Berlin and elsewhere. Not without sympathy to both those who claim that the treasures should never have been removed, and to those who note that most of the treasures left behind were plundered or vandalized later on, he leaves the issue to his readers' judgment.
I heartily recommend this book.
 A Good Book March 8, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
In FOREIGN DEVILS ON THE SILK ROAD, Hopkirk recounts the travels of several explorers in Central Asia, their encounters and the artifacts they came away with. Hopkirk doesn't go into tremendous detail about each explorer or the region, which makes this a rather quick but still interesting read. The book, however, does serve as an excellent primer on the region.
There are a few other reviews which assert that the countries which explored the region should return to China the artifacts they removed, and that Hopkirk endorses the idea that, were it not for their removal, these items would have been destroyed.
Whatever your personal position on the return of these items, Hopkirk does not personally endorse the above statement in the book -- instead, he is merely quoting one of the explorers involved.
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