{"product_id":"before-orientalism-9780812245486","title":"Before Orientalism","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eA distinct European perspective on Asia emerged in the late Middle Ages. Early reports of a homogeneous India of marvels and monsters gave way to accounts written by medieval travelers that indulged readers'' curiosity about far-flung landscapes and cultures without exhibiting the attitudes evident in the later writings of aspiring imperialists. Mining the accounts of more than twenty Europeans who made—or claimed to have made—journeys to Mongolia, China, India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia between the mid-thirteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Kim Phillips reconstructs a medieval European vision of Asia that was by turns critical, neutral, and admiring.\u003cbr\u003eIn offering a cultural history of the encounter between medieval Latin Christians and the distant East, \u003ci\u003eBefore Orientalism\u003c\/i\u003e reveals how Europeans'' prevailing preoccupations with food and eating habits, gender roles, sexualities, civility, and the foreign body helped shape their perceptions of Asian people\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A richly detailed discussion of later medieval European travellers' accounts describing Eastern Asia. . . . Phillips's call for a 'precolonial studies,' in which the diversity of European responses to foreignness takes centre-stage, is a compelling point from which medieval and early modern historians might begin to question the historical specificity of language of conquest, ownership and desire outlined so influentially by Edward Said.\" * \u003ci\u003eEnglish Historical Review\u003c\/i\u003e *\u003cbr\u003e\"Well-argued and well-researched.\" * \u003ci\u003eSpeculum\u003c\/i\u003e *\u003cbr\u003e\"A detailed and stimulating portrait of the heterogeneity of Western travelers' responses to what they saw, heard, tasted, touched, and smelled during their journeys to the distant regions of Asia.\" * Suzanne Conklin Akbari, University of Toronto *\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eBefore Orientalism\u003c\/i\u003e argues that medieval travelers were not and could not have been writing from an imperialist perspective as later 'Orientalist' writers are alleged to have done. Kim M. Phillips proves her case most convincingly, and following these travel writers through her examination of their texts is an exceedingly interesting journey.\" * David O. Morgan, University of Wisconsin-Madison *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNote on the Text\u003cbr\u003e Introduction\u003cbr\u003e PART I. THEORY, PEOPLE, GENRES\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1. On Orientalism\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2. Travelers, Tales, Audiences\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3. Travel Writing and the Making of Europe\u003cbr\u003e PART II. ENVISIONING ORIENTS\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4. Food and Foodways\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 5. Femininities\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 6. Sex\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 7. Civility\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 8. Bodies\u003cbr\u003e Afterword: For a Precolonial Middle Ages\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48884682948951,"sku":"9780812245486","price":59.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780812245486.jpg?v=1722533015","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/before-orientalism-9780812245486","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}