Our name pays tribute to the original Silk Road, the ancient conduit of Sinocentric globalization that linked economies, cultures, and religions. The Road ran from 西安 (Xi’an) to 拜占庭 (Byzantium), 大马士革 (Damascus), and other Middle Eastern endpoints, transporting some of the era’s most notable ideologies, technologies, and people: Christianity; paper; Ibn Battuta. At the Silk Road Journal, we honor the legacy of our namesake. While the original Silk Road accelerated cultural diffusion, ours proliferates thoughtful discourse in an underdeveloped space. We aim to advance the conversation, especially among young people around the world–today's students, tomorrow's policymakers–about geopolitics, economy, and culture between the MENA and East Asia.