Craig G. Benjamin

One of the worst Great Courses I've listened through. The premise of "big history" is fine enough, and follows in the footsteps of people like Jared Diamond (who is also referred to in the course); analysing history through a wide lens that also includes macro trends in climate and ecological realities such as what plants and animals are available where. Unfortunately 90% of this course isn't about that, but rather a speedrun of poorly articulated world history. If you're even remotely familiar with some eras like the ancient greeks or romans, you'll start to notice he's issuing incredibly misleading if not outright false summaries of centuries just to get through it. He also returns to Malthus and malthusian cycles over and over, instead of widening the perspective with other big history trends and interpretations.
Don't waste your time. Read Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel instead, and then a better world history overview.… (more)

Where do I even begin??

This was an extensive course that covers the long and winding history of the ancient East. China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam are each dissected and analyzed. We learn about the beginnings of each countries culture, geography, government, and religion. It all begins with China, and its influence throughout the centuries helped hone and development the other nations. It was like a giant octopus and its long tentacles of sway and power snaked their way through East Asia. However, each country valiantly fought off the cultural tidal wave of Chinese influence and went on to progress and prosper in their own ways.

Professor Craig G. Benjamin also covers the history of the Silk Road, which I found fascinating. He is very energetic and passionate about the subject. As other reviewers here have mentioned, he does tend to exaggerate the pronunciations of the different cities and names. I found this a bit amusing honestly and didn't take away from the course.

Overall I learned a good amount from Professor Benjamin. His class sparked an interest in me for the philosophies of Confucianism and Buddhism. It also sparked in me an appreciation for ancient history and of the concept of time itself. The fact that these countries in Asia are so old and immemorial is incredible. These ancient societies were creating art by sculpting, painting and drawing, writing prose and poetry, experimenting in metallurgy, going to war, creating and developing different forms of government and inventing the social hierarchy.

All of this taking place thousands of years ago. Incredible stuff.

Highly recommend this course to those interested in the beginnings of this fascinating part of the world.… (more)

The Yuezhi were a (semi-)nomadic people or state on China's northwestern periphery, probably in what's now Gansu Province, until the mid-2nd century BC, when they were defeated by the Xiongnu*, and embarked on a great migration to finally end up on the northern bank of the Oxus (Amu Darya) in what's now southern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Their arrival there is apparently the earliest historical event to be mentioned in both Chinese and Greco-Roman histories. Eventually the Kushan empire would arise from them to encompass large chunks of Central Asia and India, but that's outside Benjamin's scope.

The archaeology and literary sources available don't allow Benjamin to tell this story in too much detail, so he pads out the (still rather modest at ~250pp) book by lengthy excursions on the pre-Yuezhi history of regions they crossed, and on the relations between Han China and the Xiongnu.

The introductory chapter on "Origin" spends a lot of space seeking to show that the Yuezhi spoke a language belonging to the Tocharian branch of Indo-European. The argument amounts to that various outsiders applied variants of the ethnic label "Tocharian" to both the Yuezhi and the undoubted Tocharian-speakers in the Tarim basin. Hardly conclusive, but more convincing than I expected given the dismissals of the idea I've seen elsewhere.

A somewhat frustrating book, partly because the sources allow Benjamin so few firm conclusions, partly because of various idiosyncrasies of his style and terminology, but ultimately quite interesting.

* Often called "Huns" in western works, but the connection, if any, to the western Huns of Attila is disputed.… (more)

This is a relatively short book about a large span of space and time. In it, Craig Benjamin examines the emergence of trade routes between eastern Asia and the Mediterranean basin over a 350-year period. As Craig explains, the origins of this lay with the pastoral nomads of eastern and central Asia. The challenge they posed led Han China to mount a series of diplomatic missions and military expeditions westward, which established the first contacts with the communities of central Asia. As a commodity and a currency silk was a part of these efforts, contributing to the spread of this rare fabric until examples reached as far west as the Roman empire.

Once he has detailed the emergence of the trade routes, Craig shifts his focus and describes the four empires — those of the Romans, the Parthians, the Kushans, and the Han —whose presence made them possible. These chapters serve as excellent introductions to the empires for anyone unfamiliar with them, while their explanation of their roles as markets and guarantors of stability underscore well the conditions necessary for the trade to flourish. Craig then covers the development of the maritime routes, which gradually become the preferred method of shipping much of the trade, before concluding with the impact the disruption of these empire in the third century CE played in the decline of the trade routes. Taken together, it makes for an excellent summary of the first transcontinental trading routes in Eurasia, one that explains nicely the role of trade in the ancient world and provides some useful context for how global trade developed.… (more)