Description
Book SynopsisA revisionist history of the idea of progress reveals an unknown story about European engagement with Chinese science. The Enlightenment gave rise not only to new ideas of progress but consequential debates about them. Did distant times and places have anything to teach the here and now? Voltaire could believe that they did; Hegel was convinced that they did not. Early philosophes praised Chinese philosophy as an enduring model of reason. Later philosophes rejected it as stuck in the past. Seeking to vindicate ancient knowledge, a group of French statesmen and savants began a conversation with the last great scholar of the Jesuit mission to China. Together, they drew from Chinese learning to challenge the emerging concept of Western advancement. A Global Enlightenment traces this overlooked exchange between China and the West to make compelling claims about the history of progress, notions of European exceptionalism, and European engagement with Chinese science. To tell this sto
Trade Review“A magnificent intellectual history of the late Enlightenment’s interest in Chinese knowledge traditions, revealing their central role in European debates over the meaning and value of ‘progress.’” * Los Angeles Review of Books *
“Statman has written a marvelous, engaging, and brilliant book. He is uniquely poised to demonstrate the genuine exchanges between Chinese and Western scholars during this period. His in-depth familiarity with the network of former Jesuit missionaries proves invaluable as he traces with extreme precision intellectual connections between Paris and Beijing. Truly a paradigm-shifting book.” -- Dan Edelstein, Stanford University
“This is a wonderful book about wonder—about the Europeans who mediated Chinese thought, history, and technology for their compatriots, and the categories they constructed to house the translated facts and concepts.” -- Haun Saussy, University of Chicago
"This erudite and engaging study with its extensive use of archival sources, many of which are studied for the first time, is a welcome addition to the literature on the history of science, the Enlightenment, and Jesuit missionaries in China." * H-France Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
One. The Death of Voltaire’s Confucius
Two. The Ex-Jesuit Mission in China
Three. The Origins of Esotericism
Four. The
Yin-
Yang Theory of Animal Magnetism
Five. The Invention of Eastern Wisdom
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
