Lecture Access

This lecture will be available to view until 6 July 2026

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OVERVIEW

Watch on Demand | Online Lecture


The Silk Road was one of the most significant trade routes in world history. A lifeline that stretched from China all the way to Rome, the Silk Road witnessed the rise and fall of empires and the exchange of innumerable goods, religions, and philosophies.

For centuries, legends of the Silk Road have seduced travellers and scholars alike. Imaginations have been fired by stories of exotic bazaars teeming with wares from distant lands; daring merchants braving treacherous terrains; and Princesses smuggling priceless state secrets, all of which have shaped understandings of a unique network that facilitated complex cultural exchanges between Asia, Europe and North Africa. 

In this first part of a two-part lecture series, Dr Lauren Mackay weaves together myriad narratives of Central Asian Empires, while exploring the famous travels of Marco Polo, Genghis Khan’s endeavours to control the route, as well as the tragic spread of the Black Death along its paths, which forever altered the landscape of the medieval world.

Lecturer

Biography

Dr Lauren Mackay is an historian, author, lecturer and consultant, with a B.Mus from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music/University of Sydney, Australia, a Masters of History from the University of New England, and a PhD from the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research explores the interconnected worlds of the Early Modern period, from the courts of Tudor England and the famed Habsburgs, to the Ottoman Empire, and the global reach of European expansion into the New World. Lauren is also the author of three books, and her fourth, Thunder Through the Realms: Five Kingdoms and the Shaping of Early Modern Europe, is due out in 2025 with Bloomsbury Publishing. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, she has lectured throughout the UK, at venues including Hampton Court, the Tower of London, Sudeley Castle, Hever Castle, Windsor Castle, Leeds Castle, The National Archives, Kew, The Portrait Gallery, London, and the BBC History weekends.

Dr Lauren Mackay

Historian