Aurel Stein: Pioneer of the Silk Road

Aurel Stein was not without his faults. From all indications, he believed in the white man's burden, and probably would have tolerated fascism for its efficiency except for the realization that Hitler's brand of it included anti-Semitism, and Stein was Jewish. Even the subtitle of the book, Pioneer of the Silk Road, is Eurocentric: there were already people living in the areas Stein explored, members of tribes Stein seems to have had no interest in or ability to differentiate among. Stein was the first white archaeologist in the area, and he did open up new methods of what can only be called archaeological plunder. Stein felt that if he hadn't taken those antiquities, there was a good chance they would have been destroyed where they were. He didn't know they'd sit unviewed in the British Museum for almost a hundred years after he took them. The real crime is that they are not now given back to China to help right past injustices. Stein's racial and cultural attitudes were a product of his time. He was too stuck in the framework of his own culture to be able to judge any other culture except by the standards of his own. Annabel Walker acknowledges Stein's shortcomings and yet brings him to life as an interesting, sympathetic individual. He loved his family and friends and dogs dearly, but beyond that, he loved the great Asian wildernesses that he roamed in, often at extreme peril. Walker evokes those places, makes us see them as he did. Walker shows us the "pluck", as Stein liked to call it, of the man, as well as his determination to shape his life as he wanted it, to pursue what interested him. He died the way he lived, in action, pursuing his dream even in his old age. Annabel Walker writes with insight and equanimity. Her research is painstaking, her writing style enjoyable and thought-provoking.

It is only through the work and people like Aurel Stein that we can retain knowledge of the past which otherwise would be forgotten and lost in the hands of specialized predators and thieves. Well written book.