Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration

 by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Great reviews on Goodreads

p. 83: The Mongols not only made travel along the Silk Road safe and secure; they also opened up the possibility to cross via steppeland, which was far faster and easier. (In fact, the Silk Road existed merely because the steppeland road was unavailable for most of history, except during the 13th century: "The virture of the Silk Roads arose precisely from the fact that they eluded the steppelanders.")

pp. 96-97: How the Rus opened up the Volga... "Tbe extension of a network of Rus trading routes along the Volga and across the river's area of drainage marked the beginning of a new era in the history of cultural exchange in Eurasia."

pp. 100-102: Mali as the El Dorado of Africa, the source of all gold "was a land doomed to disappoint." Given the trouble Europeans had with finding overland routes to the sources of gold, "it is surprising that it took so long for exploration to turn seaward." More on Europe's obsession with gold comes later on p. 125: 

pp. 109-117 is one of my favorite sections, on Ming Dynasty treasure fleets of Zheng He. Armesto concludes that it was the resistance of the Confucian scholar-elite that canceled the expeditions under the Yongle emperor's successor, but that this didn't end Chinese colonization or commerce: 

The Indian Ocean winds make it difficult to move beyond it. As a result . . . 

pp. 117-122: The unlikeliness of Iberia: "Far-flung seaborne enterprise often starts from a home base which is poor or of limited exploitability, with restricts opportunities to leeward. Marginal peoples, on or beyond the edges of great civilizations, are often tempted into colonial of commercial adventures." 

And the larger context: "[The] sea has given Europe's Atlantic-side peoples a singular and terrible role in world history. Virtually all the large-scale maritime world empires of modern history were founded from this fringe... [and] there was, effectively, no Atlantic-side state that did not have one." 

Armesto asks, What took so long, then, for the 'European miracle'? 

pp. 141-151: THE BEST PART! Armesto explains the so-called "European Miracle" (Why Europe?) and why not other likely places. It all comes down to wind.

Note to self: the new Crash Course European History video on European exploration uses this book as a source and is great, much better than anything I've seen in the CC World History series.