[8] The New York Times commented that "The danger of glibness is never far, but it is always held off, and I have to say that 'Silk Roads' is what my old friend the historian Norman Stone used to describe as 'an old-fashioned good book'".

[11] According to the aforementioned K. Laug and S. Rance, the Silk Road helped India's economy to grow swiftly, but Frankopan failed to account for the country's rapid population expansion and the increasing wealth gap.

Sanmartí disagrees with Frankopan's assertion that there is no longer any space on Earth for nations to compete for, implying that Eurasia would return to its former position as the world's centre..[12] Frankopan's dismissive attitude towards Northern European engagement in the Asian slave trade, while ignoring the substantial demand for such captives in Central Asian and Middle Eastern markets, is also problematic, according to Alexandra Leonzini.

[13] Ramachandra Guha argues that from the beginning of the book through Columbus' voyages, the description of the Black Death brings the subject into the modern part, and afterwards it has lost the "focus" it was meant to express.

Frankopan points out the role in history of mainly European personalities, without mentioning figures such as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk or Ho Chi Minh.