UNFABLING THE EAST

Sub-titled 'The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia', during the long 18th century, Europe's travellers, scholars and intellectuals looked to Asia in a spirit of puzzlement, irony and openness. In this colourful book, Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment's nuanced encounter with great civilisations from the Ottoman Empire and India to China and Japan. Here are figures such as Leibniz, Voltaire, Gibbon and Hegel who took a keen interest in Asian culture and history, lesser known scientific travellers, colonial administrators, Jesuit missionaries and adventurers who returned home bearing manuscripts in many exotic languages, huge collections of ethnographic data, and stories that sometimes defied belief to the salons of Paris and the lecture halls of Edinburgh and the deserts of Arabia, steppes of Siberia and the sumptuous courts of Asian princes. Here are the Tsarist empires, barbarians at the gates, European primacy and provincialism, cultural transfer and colonialism, discursive justice in the Pathways of Knowledge section which also covers travelling, encounters, eyewitness experiences, printed texts. The history covers apocalyptic horseman, conquerors and usurpers like Attila, Timur, Nadir Shah and Haidar Alie, who were tyrants or were they enlightened reformers? Here are the cities and societies, slaves and feudalism, the role of women and domesticity, polygamy, labour, liberty and sacrifice and finally into the new age of developing nations. A tremendous heavyweight tome of 676pp published by Princeton University Press.