Discovering China
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Overview
From the late sixteenth century on, with the sending of Jesuit missionaries to China, the West had the fortune of receiving first-hand reports about China from educated persons trained in the philosophy and sciences of the day. What these men said and wrote stirred some leading minds in Europe, among them Leibniz, Wolff and Kant. The essays in this volume, studies of what Western thinkers in the Enlightenment said and wrote about China, are important for everyone interested in East-West intellectual exchanges, for the ideas and prejudices of the shapers of the Western mind continue to the present day to influence Western relations with China. Contributors: Walter W. Davis, Knud Lundbaek, Arnold H. Rowbotham, David E. Mungello, Daniel J. Cook, Henry Rosemont Jr., Donald F. Lach, Johanna M. Menzel, R.C. Bald, Arthur F. Wright.
Synopsis
Studies of the reaction of European thinkers of the Enlightenment — Leibniz, Wolff, Hegel, Kant, et al —to Chinese culture and ideas.
Booknews
A dozen articles published in The Journal of the History of Ideas, 1950-83, explore how information about China was brought back by Jesuits, who were trained in philosophy and science, beginning in the late 16th century, and how it impacted European thought of the 17th and 18th centuries. They show how Leibnitz, Wolff, Kant, and others used the ideas and images to further their own intellectual arguments. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)