Text 1: Historian Aboud argues that the Silk Road was primarily an economic network. For nearly two thousand years, caravans carried silk, spices, and silver across Eurasia, generating fortunes for merchants and wealth for the empires that taxed them. The Silk Road's significance, he writes, lies above all in the goods it moved.
Text 2: Historian Park accepts the economic importance of the Silk Road but argues that its deepest legacy was cultural. Buddhism spread from India to China, papermaking moved west, and ideas, technologies, and diseases traveled alongside the goods. Trade was the occasion, Park contends, but the lasting impact was the meeting of civilizations.
Both authors would most likely agree that
- A
no cultural exchange occurred along the Silk Road.
- Bcheck_circle
the Silk Road was a major historical phenomenon.
- C
trade goods were unimportant on the Silk Road.
- D
the Silk Road did not exist.
Explanation
Both treat the Silk Road as historically significant; they emphasize different aspects. A is shared. B, C, and D contradict at least one author.