Traditional Chinese medical practitioners have often promoted the Chinese belief that foods have intrinsic "hot" and "cold" properties, but readers might be surprised to learn that the idea actually originated in Greece with the physician Hippocrates (460 BC).

His medical theory of "humorism" later spread to India and then on to China - a proliferation made possible by the Silk Road, a new book argues.

In The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction, historian and Georgetown University professor of intersocietal history James Millward demonstrates that many of the cultural signposts we associate with specific cultures are actually the result of the famous "road" linking East and West.