Frankopan to bring Silk Roads 'up to date' in autumn release

Bloomsbury is set to publish a new book by bestselling author and professor of global history at Oxford University, Peter Frankopan.

The New Silk Roads, out in November 2018, will be a "beautifully designed" hardback on "what you need to know about the present and future of the world".

Frankopan’s last book The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, published in 2015, received widespread acclaim: it was a Book of the Week for The Times; a Book of the Year pick in the Observer, Guardian, Sunday Times and the Times Literary Supplement; the History Book of the Year for the Daily Telegraph; and a Non-Fiction Book of the Year for Daunt Books. It has now sold over one million copies around the world and was in the Sunday Times bestseller list for 31 weeks at paperback, said the publisher. Language rights to date have been sold in 25 countries.

Following the Silk Roads eastwards, from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World will bring the story up to date and provide a "timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected".

"In an age of Brexit and Trump, the themes of isolation and fragmentation permeating the Western world stand in sharp contrast to what has been happening along the Silk Roads, where the story has been about deepening ties and trying to work together", said the publisher.

"With brilliant insight, Peter Frankopan will take a fresh look at the network of relationships that are being formed along the length and breadth of the Silk Roads today, assessing the global reverberations of these continual shifts in the centre of power – all too often absent from headlines in the West."

The publisher holds UK and Commonwealth rights to the new title.

Bloomsbury Children’s Books, which won Children’s Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards this year, will be publishing an illustrated edition of The Silk Roads in October 2018, a new world history that has been re-written for a younger audience by Frankopan himself, with colour illustrations by Neil Packer.