Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was very disappointed after reading all the wonderful reviews. Maybe they are reading a different book? I had assumed we would be learning about the history of the silk roads and the many dynasties that rose and fell along the route - the Songdians, the cities of the Tamir Basin for example. I thought this would be an Asian centric book showing the silk roads impact on Han Dynasty China and the steps that had to be taken to keep the route secure. I thought we would learn of the earliest use of the silk road in trade between Sumeria and what is now northern Afganistan based on the early trade in Lapis and how this led to the later creation of Faience. Or perhaps how the silk road brought Buddhism to the west and mixed the artistic sense of the descendants of Alexander's army with the Central Asian Buddhist cave dwellers. I was very wrong in my expectations. Maybe I am missing something but this is still a Western-centric view, centered on Byzantium and medieval Europe. The first steppe dwellers we meet in any depth are the Mongols, who by that time, are a thousand years later than the early steppe dwellers who so profoundly influenced world culture both East and West. This book spends most of it's time in detailing the trade and fortunes of the West instead of focusing on the various kingdoms of the silk road. What is going on here? How could all the reviewers have missed this? This book is not as advertised a new history of the world, but rather a view of the economic impact of trade on the western world. For example, how does Columbus come to bear on the silk road? We read here about his expedition but no analysis relating to the silk road at all. That is one of many examples to show that the author does not seem to have much interest in writing about the silk road, but rather about how luxury good trade impacts the western world. This is my first book review although I have read dozens that I may not like. I am only writing this because it is not that I do not like what is written, but rather it is not what the book title implies and I want to give fair warning to others who may be like me in their interests.