Christopher Beckwith has written a new book called EMPIRES OF THE SILK ROAD, the first complete history of Central Eurasia, and discusses the bad rap the Barbarians have historically received in an article recently posted on the History News Network. You can read the whole article here, but I include an intriguing portion of his op-ed:

“The popular Western idea of Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, and other famous Central Eurasians should be obvious to anyone familiar with the portrayal of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s characters in the popular movies Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja—they’re Barbarians!

But this is more than just an idea in the popular imagination. Despite many scholars’ addition of scare quotes to the word (“barbarian”) in a nod to political correctness, or their omission of the word entirely from their writings, the traditional view of Central Eurasians it embodies has remained largely unchallenged even among specialists.”

Over the past two weeks Andrei Codrescu has visited Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland, New York, Boston, and Princeton to lecture and sign copies of The Posthuman Dada Guide. Many predict the author tour will be phased out in future years, but by all accounts, Andrei’s tour was incredibly successful. One of the interesting things to note about author tours now is that there is a parallel virtual tour taking place via blog posts, twitters, facebook, and online videos. Here… a virtual recounting of his tour culled from the web.

First, the New York Public Library event featuring Henry Alford and Paul Holdengraber with real-time drawings by Flash Rosenberg. (April 13, 2009).

Then on to Seattle’s Town Hall (April 22), City Lights in San Francisco (April 26)and Los Angeles (April 28) to participate in the Public Library’s ALOUD series (video available from fora.tv).

Also in Los Angeles, Andrei experienced Ten Minutes at Zócalo.

Back up to Portland for an event at Powell’s (April 30) for which we find many mentions at twitter and a thank you note in the “notes” section of Andrei’s facebook page.

[Updated 5/12/09] Here is video, courtesy of PDX Justice of Andrei’s event at Powell’s:

Then out to the East coast where The Big Red Apple mentions attending Andrei’s event with St. Mark’s Bookshop (May 4) at the Solas Bar in New York, which was coincidentally the name of the restaurant in Boston where Andrei and some of his audience went to eat fish and chips after his lecture at the Public Library (May 5).

The last stop on the tour found Andrei in Princeton at Labyrinth Books. In an otherwise flawless tour, this was the one stop where the planes and trains did not cooperate and Andrei was late, but as owner Dorothea noted — how better to start a dada event than to piss off the audience! The discussion was fantastic and prompted me to post a new spam hall of shame item this morning. Kim Nagy of Wild River Review was on hand and posts her thoughts here.

Is this the future of the book tour?

Christopher Beckwith’s EMPIRES OF THE SILK ROAD: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present is starting to take off in the blogosphere. Nicholas Basbanes, the nationally syndicated columnist and book reviewer, recently added the book to “Nick’s Picks” on the blog FineBooksMagazine.com. Here is the review.

And Steve Dodson, who writers the LanguageHat.com blog, has become fascinated by the book’s arguments, and, perhaps not surprisingly, footnotes! He writes about the book on LanguageHat.com here and here.

Christopher Beckwith, author of the new book EMPIRES OF THE SILK ROAD, a fascinating history of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the present, takes the Page 99 Test on the popular blog. Take a gander here.

Princeton’s recent publication of Franz Kafka: The Office Writings has certainly inspired some thoughtful and interesting reviews. But this one, in particular, by a critic named Ben Kafka (that’s right), published in the April/May issue of Bookforum may take the cake. Read the review on Bookforum’s website here. Be sure to check out the first paragraph…

January 25, 2009 was cause for celebration, and perhaps an occasion for delighting in the culinary delicacy known as haggis. Yes, the hugely popular poet (and Scottish national treasure) Robert Burns was born 250 years ago. Robert Crawford, a celebrated poet in his own right, has now published the first comprehensive and up-to-date biography of [...]