Description
Book SynopsisIn this important new book the renowned historian Serge Gruzinski returns to two episodes in the sixteenth century which mark a decisive stage in global history and show how China and Mexico experienced the expansion of Europe.
In the early 1520s, Magellan set sail for Asia by the Western route, Cortes seized Mexico and some Portuguese based in Malacca dreamed of colonizing China. The Aztec Eagle was destroyed but the Chinese Dragon held strong and repelled the invaders - after first seizing their cannon. For the first time, people from three continents encountered one other, confronted one other and their lives became entangled. These events were of great interest to contemporaries and many people at the time grasped the magnitude of what was going on around them. The Iberians succeeded in America and failed in China. The New World became inseparable from the Europeans who were to conquer it, while the Celestial Empire became, for a long time to come, an unattainable goal.
Trade Review""A groundbreaking study… a feat of scholarship with striking and far reaching interpretations."
Asian Review of Books"Serge Gruzinski has made a brilliant contribution to the new genre of “connected” history in this study, which contrasts the successful conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards with the failure of Portuguese attempts to colonize China."
Peter BurkeTable of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter 1 - Two tranquil worlds
Chapter 2 - Openness to the world
Chapter 3 - Because the world is round
Chapter 4 - A leap into the unknown?
Chapter 5 - Books and letters from the other end of the world
Chapter 6 - Embassy or conquest?
Chapter 7 - The clash of civilizations
Chapter 8 - Naming the other
Chapter 9 - A story of cannon
Chapter 10 - Opacity or transparency?
Chapter 11 - The greatest cities in the world
Chapter 12 - The Hour of the crime
Chapter 13 - The Place of the Whites
Chapter 14 - To everyone their own post-war
Chapter 15 - The secrets of the South Sea
Chapter 16 - China on the horizon
Chapter 17 - When China awakes
Conclusion - Towards a global history of the Renaissance
Notes
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