·      The goods and ideas that spread along the Silk Road where spread in some interesting ways.  Caravans traveling the Silk Road took more than four months to trek across the mostly unsettled deserts, mountains, and grasslands of Inner Asia that stood between Sogdiana and China, carrying with them agricultural goods, manufactured products, and ideas.  Musicians and dancing girls traveled, too – as did camel pullers, merchants, monks, and pilgrims.  The Silk Road was not just a means of bringing peoples and parts of the world into; it was also a social system.  With every expansion of territory, the growing wealth of temples, kings, and emperors enticed traders to venture ever farther afield for precious goods.  For, the most part, the customers were wealthy elites.  But the new products, agricultural and industrial processes, and foreign ideas and customs these long-distance traders brought with them sometimes affected an entire society.  I thought that it was interesting to read that Travelers and traders seldom owned much land or wielded political power.  Also considering the travelers were socially isolated and secretive because any talk about markets, products, routes, and travel conditions could help their competitors, they nevertheless though contributed more to drawing the world together than did all but a few kings and emperors, which was interesting.  The Silk Road seemed to be hugely important in the spread of Religion.