China Through European Eyes 800 Years Of Cultural And Intellectual Encounter

China Through European Eyes provides a reader's perspective on the conceptualisation of China by Europeans over the last 800 years. With annotated excerpts of their key China related writings by influential figures such as Voltaire, Ricci, Leibniz, Montesquieu, Marx, Weber, Hegel, Barthes and Kristeva, this collection brings together the visions and ideas of individuals who had a unique impact upon European culture. The views within range wildly as the authors wrestle with what sense to make of China's cultural and social difference to their lives in the West, conceptualising China as a place of threat, otherness, exoticism, but also inspiration.This important selection allows for comparison of perspectives across different times in Europe, allowing readers to map out continuities and evolutions of attitudes towards China. It shows that contemporary European attitudes towards China have deep roots. With an extensive introduction, full bibliography and widespread annotations on original texts, this book will be of interest to anyone engaged with the role of China in the world today, particularly those interested in how the crucial relationship between China and Europe developed over time.Related Link(s)

Encountering China addresses the responses of early modern travelers to China who, awed by the wealth and sophistication of the society they encountered, attempted primarily to build bridges, to explore similarities, and to emulate the Chinese, though they were also critical of some local traditions and practices. Contributors engage critically with travelogues, treating them not just as occasional sources of historical information but as primary, literary texts deeply revelatory of the world they describe. Contributors reach back to the earliest European writings available on China in an effort to broaden and nuance our understanding of European contact with the Middle Kingdom in the early modern period. While the primary focus of these essays is the external gaze – European sources about China – contributors also tease out aspects of the Chinese world-view of the time, thus generating a conversation between Chinese literary and historical texts and European ones.

This book aims to help readers make sense of our changing world by sharing the views of global thought leaders on some of the most important issues of our time, from US-China relations and global governance to climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. The ten dialogues in this book were part of the “China and the World” series of online discussions hosted by the Center for China and Globalization (CCG). The series features CCG President Huiyao Wang in conversation with experts from a range of fields, from renowned scholars of international relations, economics, and history, to journalists, policymakers, and business leaders. The speakers featured in this book are Graham Allison, David Blair, Kerry Brown, Anne Case, Li Chen, Wendy Cutler, Angus Deaton, Thomas L. Friedman, Valerie Hansen, Pascal Lamy, Kishore Mahbubani, Joseph S. Nye Jr., Adam Posen, J. Stapleton Roy, John L. Thornton, Huiyao Wang, Martin Wolf, and Zhu Guangyao. These wide-ranging discussions offer unique insights and perspectives on key trends shaping our world in the 21st century. These include the rise of China and shifts in geopolitics, as well as the evolving nature of globalization, transnational threats, and multilateralism. This is an open access book. This is an open access book.

In the twenty-first century, China has emerged as the leading challenger to U.S. global dominance. China is often seen as a sleeping giant, emerging out of poverty, backwardness, and totalitarianism and moving toward modernization. However, history shows that this vast country is not newly awakening, but rather returning to its previous state of world eminence. With this compelling perspective in mind, D. E. Mungello convincingly shows that contemporary relations between China and the West are far more like the 1500-1800 period than the more recent past. This fully revised second edition retains the clear and concise qualities of its predecessor, while developing important new social and cultural themes such as gender, sexuality, music, and technology. Drawing from the author's thirty years of experience teaching world history, this book illustrates the importance of history to students and general readers trying to understand today's world.

For the Chinese, the drive toward growing political and economic power is part of an ongoing effort to restore China's past greatness and remove the lingering memories of history's humiliations. This widely praised book explores the 1500-1800 period before China's decline, when the country was viewed as a leading world culture and power. D.E. Mungello argues that this earlier era, ironically, may contain more relevance for today than the more recent past. This fully revised fourth edition retains the clear and concise quality of its predecessors, while drawing on a wealth of.

For the Chinese, the drive toward growing political and economic power is part of an ongoing effort to restore China's past greatness and remove the lingering memories of history's humiliations. This widely praised book explores the 1500–1800 period before China's decline, when the country was viewed as a leading world culture and power. Europe, by contrast, was in the early stages of emerging from provincial to international status while the United States was still an uncharted wilderness. D. E. Mungello argues that this earlier era, ironically, may contain more relevance for today than the more recent past. This fully revised fourth edition retains the clear and concise quality of its predecessors, while drawing on a wealth of new research on Sino-Western history and the increasing contributions of Chinese historians. Building on the author's decades of research and teaching, this compelling book illustrates the vital importance of history to readers trying to understand China’s renewed rise.