New Rostovtzeff Lectures Book Publication by Jonathan Skaff

Jonathan Skaff, Professor Emeritus of History at Shippensburg University and ISAW 2015-16 Visiting Research Scholar, recently published a new book, Silk Roads, Steppe Roads: History Unearthed from the Tombs of Medieval China (Princeton University Press, 2026). The book is the fourth volume to appear in Princeton University Press's Rostovtzeff Lectures series and is based on a set of four Rostovtzeff Lectures delivered by Skaff at ISAW in spring 2016.

Skaff's research concerns medieval China’s frontier interactions with Inner Asia and investigates various aspects of political, military, cultural, and economic relations. At Shippensburg University, he has taught courses on the history of China, Japan, the Silk Road, World History, and International Studies.
 
Book Overview:

Silk Roads, Steppe Roads takes the reader on a journey to three sites in northwestern China and Mongolia to investigate medieval Chinese tombs containing evidence of Eastern Eurasian cultural contacts and exchanges. The construction, artifacts, and texts on paper and stone found at these tombs of the Sui (581–618) and early Tang (618–907) dynasties reveal glimpses of people, rituals, and objects that were in motion on the Silk and Steppe roads until being laid to rest over a millennium ago.

Jonathan Karam Skaff shows how the major transit hubs of the Silk and Steppe roads were particularly active sites of cultural contestation, experimentation, and mutual influence that had an impact on the historical development of China and Inner Asia. Challenging the idealized image of the Silk Road, he also examines travel permits and sales contracts that document the trade of enslaved people over the route.

Innovatively drawing on both textual and archaeological sources, Silk Roads, Steppe Roads shows how Eurasian peoples, despite believing their societies to be unique, spun overlapping and entangled webs of culture.