My initial interest in the author Nick Middleton finds its origin in the fact that he is a geographer, and it is suggested that as such his writing would have a very different focus. Most travel writers are literary people, and most travel writing focusses on culture and anthropology. However, reading Middleton's book Extremes. Surviving the world's harshest environments about Greenland, Congo, Niger, and Papua-New Guinea was rather disappointing. The same sense of disappointment comes with reading Extremes along the Silk Road. Adventures off the world's oldest superhighway.

What must be said in favor of the book is that the author travels an unusual road, starting in Mongolia, then trekking into northwestern China, via Gansu Province and the north of Xinjiang Province and ending his journey near the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan. However, the book is hardly about geography, and is barely discernable from other travelogues. The book mainly focusses on the unusualness of the people the author encounters on the way.

With the current Chinese leadership working to develop the One Belt, One Road project, there is renewed interest in the vast land expanse between central China's Xi'an city and the eastern-most reaches of Europe. However, as this area is not only formed by a rather hostile environment, for instance the Gobi Desert, the region is also known for it's political instability. In fact, three years into the project, the Chinese have established very little, their main stronghold being in Pakistan and Kazakhstan. In the introduction of the book Middleton expounds that the so-called historical "Silk Road" did not consist of a single, clearly marked road. The Silk Road, a term coined by a German sinologist about 100 years ago, is more like a concept, covering various overland routes connecting Europe with the far-east in a corridor of trade and cultural exchange. Thus, roman-greek influences can be found in north-western Chinese sculpture, while silk products were at one time fashionable in imperial Rome.

Obviously, the Silk Road brings up images of caravans of camels, but ever since the Great Game days of Kipling and the British Empire, continued in the dominance of the United States, the region has suffered from imperialism and a clear policy to destabilize the region. Thus, what would be the middle route of the Silk Road, through Persia (Iran), Iraq and Syria is clearly not viable at present, as the proposed Pax Sinica is thwarted by American military intervention in the region.

Extremes along the Silk Road. Adventures off the world's oldest superhighway could be a very good impression into the development of a northern corridor. However, although Nick Middleton's road travel or a motor bike may be romatic and adventurous, it tells us little about the reality of travel by high speed rail, as under development by the Chinese. The book will interest readers form an anthropological point of view, but the book utterly fails to describe the landscape or environmental situation of the region, with exception of the author's description of the environmental disaster that befell the Aral Sea, and an area by the name of Vozrozhdeniye, which was an area designated by the Soviet Union to test biological weapons.

Extremes along the Silk Road. Adventures off the world's oldest superhighway will be enjoyed by readers of adventurous travel in rather out of the way places, and as such the book does a good job. It is well-written, never really dull, while the road travelled, the people and their customs are unusual. ( )

The author, a professor of geography with an interest in the desert, has written this account of his trips over time in the Silk Road.

He made his travels interesting, readable,and I was sorry when it was over!

The silk road is not one road, but a network of trails and roads between China and the middle east, for centuries this was the area that materials, foods, cultures, religions, and goods were exchanged. This linked East to West and was often the only way exchanges of any kind happened.

The author, who apparently follows extremes of the world, makes his journeys to the far reaches to be enjoyable and not at all patronizing to its inhabitiants. ( )

One reviewer compared the author to Indiana Jones. Another called him Mr. Magoo. I should have listened to the last one. For most of the book, Nick Middleton's various sicknesses and fears eclipse the stories of the countries he visits. I aspire to be the kind of traveller who can find something to appreciate anywhere; Mr. Middleton clearly is not. He whines about altitude sicknesses, garbage, bad hotels and physical hardship on journeys he did little to prepare for. The redeeming feature? His travels in Kazakhstan. For once, the troubles of the people he visits outweigh his own discomfort, and he describes the ecological disaster of the Aral Sea and the consequences for those who depended on it in heartbreaking detail. Reading that made the rest of the book worth it. ( )