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Covering 5,000 miles, passing through 13 countries and crossing some of the most dramatic landscapes on the planet, this is the fascinating story of the lucrative trade route which changed the course of civilization forever. In this extraordinary series, Dr Sam Willis explores how the fortunes of the West were shaped by the East, beginning with the story of a Chinese Emperor who was so desperate to protect his lands against his enemies that he reached out beyond his borders into the unknown, for one of the most important game changers in human history - horses. And in return for these legendary steeds, the Emperor was willing to trade the most precious material in his world, silk.

In the second episode of his series tracing the story of the most famous trade route in history, Dr Sam Willis travels west to Central Asia, a part of the Silk Road often overlooked and yet the place of major innovations, big historical characters and a people - the Sogdians - whose role was pivotal to its success.

In the high mountain passes of Tajikistan, Sam meets the last survivors of that race, who once traded from the Mediterranean to the China Sea. In the Uzbek cities of Samarkand and Bukara, he discovers how they were built by armies of captive craftsmen for one of the greatest conquerors the world has ever seen - Timur.

From here, Sam follows the flow of goods back towards the markets of the west, showing how their trading culture sparked cultural, technical and artistic revolutions all along the Silk Road, and goes back to school to learn where modern mathematics and astronomy were born.