'A ceaselessly flowing stream of life' -- Coiled dragons and filmy fleeces : jade and silk -- From Greece and Rome to China, and back again -- A people abandoned by heaven : the Xiongnu and trade during the Han dynasty -- The spread of trade and religions : Tocharians and Sogdians -- The fashion for all things Central Asian -- The caves of the thousand buddhas : Buddhism on the Silk Road -- Tanguts, Mongols, Nestorians and Marco Polo -- A parterre of roses : travellers to Ming China and Samarkand -- The great game and the Silk Road -- Asia held them captive in her cold embrace : explorers on the Silk Road -- Trophies and tiger entrails : hunting and theorising on the Silk Road -- Securing specimens : Aurel Stein -- An end to excavation : Pelliot, von Le Coq and Warner -- The baby general : travel on the Silk Road in the 1930s -- Epilogue: The Silk Road today.