Tearing up the Silk Road by Tom Coote: book review

Tearing up the Silk Road: a modern journey from China to Istanbul, through Central Asia, Iran and the Caucasus (2012) is a travel memoir and a travel diary. It is not a travel adventure.

Coote takes the journey along the Silk Road in 2010 as “something he had to do” even though he doesn’t articulate why. He doesn’t even know why. He begins by explaining that there is no such thing as the Silk Road. Instead, “there are many Silk Roads that shifted and twisted through Asia, Europe and Africa over hundreds of years.” He travels between “the best known starting and end points” – Chang’an (Xian), the old capital of China, and Byzantium (Istanbul) in Turkey. He did the journey in 9 weeks.

The memoir or travelogue is separated into 8 sections: China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, and Turkey. Within each country, Coote further divides the sections into cities visited. Each section gives a day-by-day, experience-by-experience account of his journey. There is little embellishment, although Coote does express his opinions and views about the politics, people, food, and landscapes.

It is aptly titled. The author did ‘tear up’ the Silk Road – in the figurative meaning of the phrase – “to move with haste. “ Likewise, readers can tear up the book in one sitting, or read about one country or one city at a time.

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