★The definitive masterwork from a legendary scholar who crossed borders, ideologies, and continents—a sweeping 860-page testament to how civilizational exchange, from the ancient Silk Road to the global age, holds the key to humanity's shared future.

A definitive work from a global authority on civilizational exchange.

This volume is the definitive collection of the life-long work of Jeong Su-il, a world-class scholar who dedicated his life to the study of cross-cultural exchange. Following his groundbreaking Silk Road Studies, this book brings together the author's comprehensive research. It provides rigorous proof that the ancient Silk Road trade — spanning land, sea, and steppes — extended all the way to the Korean Peninsula, and explores global maritime exchanges, including that with the Americas.

From the Eurasian Silk Road to Global Civilizational Exchange

This book systematically examines the concept of civilization, the history and structure of its exchange, and its ultimate trajectory. Jeong defines civilization as the totality of outcomes created through physical and mental labor, proposing "commonality" as a core feature alongside traditional notions of indigeneity and imitation. He further characterizes civilizational exchange as the act of giving and receiving different cultural products based on the principles of mutual benefit and reciprocity.

By tracing the origins of these exchanges back to the long-distance migrations of the Upper Paleolithic period, he expands the Silk Road from a corridor limited to Eurasia to a pan-global gateway encompassing all five oceans and six continents. Furthermore, he argues that these inter-civilizational exchanges suggest the possibility for a universal civilization based on sharing, equality, and fairness, paving the way for the co-existence and co-prosperity of all humankind.

Jeong Su-il
Jeong Su-il was born in 1934 in Yanbian, China, and majored in Eastern Studies at Peking University. He was China's first state-sponsored student to study abroad at Cairo University in Egypt, and later worked for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Embassy in Morocco.

He served as a professor at Pyongyang University of International Relations and Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, a researcher at the Economic and Social Policy Analysis Laboratory at the University of Tunis, and a professor at the Academy of Islamic Studies at the University of Malaya.

In 1984, he entered South Korea under the guise of an Arab-Filipino and served as a professor of history at Dankook University. He was later imprisoned for violating the National Security Act and was released in 2000.

Following his release, he dedicated himself to the study of civilizational exchange, academic expeditions, lecturing, and writing. He founded the Korea Institute of Civilization Exchanges and served as the president of the International Association for Silk Road Studies. He passed away in 2025.