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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.