The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

To Katarina, Flora, Francis and Luke

We halted in the country of a tribe of Türks…we saw a group who worship snakes, a group who worship fish, and a group who worship cranes.

Ibn Faḍlān’s Voyage to the Volga Bulghars

I, Prester John, am the lord of lords, and I surpass all the kings of the entire world in wealth, virtue and power…Milk and honey flow freely in our lands; poison can do no harm, nor do any noisy frogs croak. There are no scorpions, no serpents creeping in the grass.

Purported letter of Prester John to Rome and Constantinople, twelfth century

He has a very large palace, entirely roofed with fine gold.

Christopher Columbus’ research notes on the Great Khan of the East, late fifteenth century

If we do not make relatively small sacrifices, and alter our policy, in Persia now, we shall both endanger our friendship with Russia and find in a comparatively near future…a situation where our very existence as an Empire will be at stake.

Sir George Clerk to Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, 21 July 1914

The president would win even if we sat around doing nothing.

Chief of Staff to Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, shortly before 2005 elections