In last week’s seminar, I was considering two possible project ideas. One related to the Silk Road, and the other related to the India-Pakistan partition. At this stage, I’ve done a bit of research on both these ideas, and will be talking a bit about each to consider which project would be better to pursue for my long project.
One of the projects which I was rather excited to pursue was the Silk Road, and how the British Empire utilised it in their transfer of goods, ideas and textiles across Europe and to Asia. However, this project might not be as feasible as I originally believed, as the Silk Road disintegrated after the fall of the Mongol Empire, and silk trade disintegrated after the collapse of the Safavid Empire in the 1720s. The Silk Road, however, is famous today due to the New Silk Road, which was brought about in 1966, after the British Empire had declined considerably. 1966 came after the independence of most of the British colonies, in exception to a few in Africa and perhaps Hong Kong. As a result, it would be difficult to find source material on how the British transported themselves across the silk road, as the route itself was not being utilised between 1720 and 1966. These were the years of the peak of the British Empire.
Although doing a project on the British Empire utilising the Silk Road might be slightly futile at this stage, what might be particularly intriguing would be to consider how the British Empire spread ideas, textiles and goods across their colonies and to Britain, and how they utilised these goods. For example, it might be interesting to consider their spread of religion, with British missionaries advocating Christianity in certain colonies. For example, Professor Heather Sharkey wrote that “the missionaries played manifold roles in colonial Africa and stimulated forms of cultural, political and religious change”. The British, of course, failed to spread their religion in certain colonies, and it also would be intriguing to investigate why their missions failed in areas like Japan, but succeeded in Africa. Moreover, it could be interesting to consider how the British used spices from India, or silk from China and utilised them across empire. Of course, this would also look into migration, into how the British utilised the people of empire as well.
Thinking about this topic, it seems rather broad. For my project, I’d have to consider narrowing it down to a particular theme, such as the spread of religion, or the spread of ideas, rather than people. Within the spread of ideas, I could include religion, language, ideas of imperialism and nationalism. While I’m still unsure of how I want to pursue this, this would need a lot more research to become a more concrete essay question, and I’d definitely need to narrow it down some more.