Notes

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: LOOKING TO THE EAST

    1. “Nos peuples occidentaux ont fait éclater dans toutes ces découvertes une grande supériorité d’esprit et de courage sur les nations orientales. Nous nous sommes établis chez elles, et très souvent malgré leur résistance. Nous avons appris leurs langues, nous leur avons enseigné quelques-uns de nos arts. Mais la nature leur avait donné sur nous un avantage qui balance tous les nôtres; c’est qu’elles n’avaient nul besoin de nous, et que nous avions besoin d’elles.” Voltaire, “Essai sur les mœurs,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 26A (2013), 181; Voltaire, The Works of M. de Voltaire, 1761–65, vol. 4 (1761), 179.

    2. Hammer-Purgstall, Chane der Krim, 1856, 141–49.

    3. “Et que si ces Tartares n’avoient pas des guerres continuelles entre eux, ils seroient capables d’inonder und grande partie du monde, comme Chingis-chan a fait autres fois.” Leibniz, Briefwechsel mit den Jesuiten in China, 2006, 204 (Leibniz to Antoine Verjus, S. J., April 20, 1699).

    4. “Die materialistische Geschichtsauffassung” (1909), in Wieser, Recht und Macht, 1910, 114–15.

    5. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 1996, esp. chs. 5, 10, 11.

    6. The present book does not have the ambition to propose yet another overall interpretation of the Enlightenment. For the major issues concerning the historical Enlightenment, its influence, and its continuing relevance see Ferrone, The Enlightenment, 2015; Pagden, The Enlightenment, 2013; an outstanding historical introduction is Tortarolo, L’illuminismo, 2007.

    7. Cheneval, Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Bedeutung, 2002; Albrecht, Kosmopolitismus, 2005.

    8. See Schlereth, The Cosmopolitan Ideal, 1977. On patriotic countertendencies see Fink, “Patriotisme et cosmopolitisme,” 1992.

    9. On correspondence networks in the “republic of letters” see Goodman, Republic of Letters, 1994; Withers, Placing the Enlightenment, 2007, 42–61.

  10. Withers, Placing the Enlightenment, 2007, 35–41; Kraus and Renner, Orte eigener Vernunft, 2008; Butterwick, Davies, and Sanchez Espinosa, Peripheries of the Enlightenment, 2008; Hardtwig, Die Aufklärung und ihre Weltwirkung, 2010; Conrad, “Enlightenment in Global History,” 2012.

  11. See as a case study of an Asian hub of global knowledge: Raj, “The Historical Anatomy of a Contact Zone,” 2011.

  12. P. Burke, A Social History of Knowledge, 2000 (table of contents); similarly Withers, Placing the Enlightenment, 2007, 87–135.

  13. Collet, Die Welt in der Stube, 2007.

  14. Schneider, Kulturen des Wissens im 18. Jahrhundert, 2008.

  15. See Blanke, Politische Herrschaft, 1997, vol. 2, 1–20.

  16. Golvers, Libraries of Western Learning for China, 2012–15.

  17. See Plewe, Die Carl Ritter Bibliothek, 1978.

  18. Plant, Türkisches Staats-Lexicon, 1789, “Vorbericht” (unpaginated).

  19. E. Burke, Correspondence, 1958–78, vol. 3 (1961), 351. This famous quotation opens as an epigraph the pioneering work by Marshall and Williams, Great Map of Mankind, 1982.

  20. Démeunier , L’esprit des usages et des coutumes des différens peuples, vol. 1, v. On similar judgments among authors related to the Encyclopédie see Vyverberg, Human Nature, 1989, 89.

  21. Ferguson, Essay on the History of Civil Society, 1966, 21. Similarly Denis Diderot in 1770, quoted in Landucci, I filosofi, 1972, 20–21.

  22. On this tangible presence of the East see Dermigny, La Chine et l’Occident, 1964, vol. 1; McCabe, History of Global Consumption, 2015; Berg, Goods from the East, 2015.

  23. Derks, History of the Opium Problem, 2012; Milligan, Pleasures, 1995; Hayter, Opium, 1968; Berridge and Edwards, Opium, 1981.

  24. Bruzen de la Martinière, Introduction à l’histoire de l’Asie, 1735, vol. 1, xii.

  25. For Germany, the emergence of special sciences of the “Orient” has been dated to around 1810. See Mangold, Eine “weltbürgerliche Wissenschaft,” 2004, 42–46; for a more nuanced picture that avoids sharp periodization see Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire, 2009.

  26. For more detail see Osterhammel, “ ‘Peoples without History,’ ” 2000.

  27. See Schulin, Die weltgeschichtliche Erfassung des Orients bei Hegel und Ranke, 1958, 235–69; Muhlack, “Das Problem der Weltgeschichte bei Leopold Ranke,” 2010.

  28. Compare my discussion, retained from the orginal of 1998, with Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s recent mapping of the debate: Subrahmanyam, Europe’s India: Words, People, Empires, 1500–1800, 2017, 212–15.

  29. See Said, Orientalism, 1978, 86–87. More modestly, it could be said that Bonaparte’s invasion of 1798 “pushed relations between Europe and the Muslim world into a new phase.” Fowden, “Gibbon on Islam,” 2016, 292.

  30. For example, Inden, Imagining India, 1990, esp. 36ff.

  31. Measured formulations of this argument that avoid the excesses of “deconstructionism” may be found in Dalmia and Stietencron, “Introduction,” 1995, 20–21; Quigley, Interpretation of Caste, 1993, 12ff.

  32. Kupperman, “Introduction,” 1995, 5.

  33. See also Ryan, “Assimilating New Worlds in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” 1981. Peter Burke detects a deeper awareness and appreciation of the epistemological challenges posed by America emerging only in the eighteenth century: Burke, “America and the Rewriting of World History,” 1995, 47. Other important advocates of the idea that America had only a minor impact on the European mind are John H. Elliott and Giovanni Gliozzi.

  34. This is a central insight in Gadamer, Truth and Method, 1988, 245–74.

  35. See Haase and Reinhold, The Classical Tradition, 1994; Grafton, New Worlds and Ancient Texts, 1993.

  36. Boulainvilliers, Histoire des Arabes, 1731, 6.

  37. Adelung, Geschichte der Schiffahrten, 1768, 2–3.

  38. See Said, Culture and Imperialism, 1993.

  39. Such a “Whig interpretation” of European insightfulness still informs Donald F. Lach’s gigantic, unsurpassably copious encyclopedia of seventeenth-century European views of Asia: Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, vol. 2, 1970–77; Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, vol. 3, 1993.

  40. B. Lewis, “Eurozentrismus,” 1995, 650.

  41. The point of departure today for any discussion of European perceptions of Asiatic religions must be the work of Urs App, esp. his Birth of Orientalism, 2010.

  42. From many related publications by this author see esp. Pocock, “The Concept of a Language,” 1987, 21–22.

  43. See also Rousseau and Porter, “Introduction,” 1990, 1. The studies by Gilman on coping with difference are of particular importance; see for example Difference and Pathology, 1985.

  44. See Blanke, Politische Herrschaft, 1997, vol. 2, 28–33.

  45. Kaempfer, Heutiges Japan, 2001. Again, in a neat parallel to the editorial history of the text in the eighteenth century, this definitive edition was preceded by a new translation, replacing Scheuchzer’s version of 1727, of the manuscript in the British Library: Kaempfer, Kaempfer’s Japan, 1999.

  46. See Haberland, Von Lemgo nach Japan, 1990, 17–28. On many different aspects of Kaempfer’s life and work see Haberland, Engelbert Kaempfer, 2004.

  47. Kaempfer’s Europe-wide reception has been ably reconstructed by Kapitza, “Engelbert Kaempfer und die europäische Aufklärung,” 1980.

  48. Burckhardt was born in Lausanne; his family belonged to the patriciate of Basel. He was educated at Göttingen and Leipzig. For biographical details, see Henze, Enzyklopädie der Entdecker und Erforscher der Erde, 1978–2004, vol. 1, 399–407; Wollmann, Scheich Ibrahim, 1984.

  49. See Subrahmanyam, “One Asia, or Many?” 2016.

  50. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, 32.

  51. See for example Vicziany, “Imperialism, Botany and Statistics,” 1986.

  52. In their encyclopedic work on European perceptions of Asia (see note 39 above), Donald F. Lach and Edwin J. Van Kley confine themselves for good logistical reasons to South, Southeast, and East Asia, excluding Central Asia, Siberia, and the entire Islamic world.

  53. See for example Murphey and Stapleton, A History of Asia, 2016.

  54. Chaudhuri, Asia before Europe, 1990.

  55. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 1, 53.

  56. Such as J. de Guignes, Mémoire, 1759.

  57. A magisterial synthesis is Gascoigne, Encountering the Pacific in the Age of the Enlightenment, 2014.

  58. At least for England, such a periodization even makes sense in the national historical context: see O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century, 1997.

  59. Thus, for example, the discussion of the “end” of Enlightenment in Outram, The Enlightenment, 2013, ch. 10.

  60. See Baridon, “Lumières et enlightenment,” 1978, 46, 56; Schneiders, “Einleitung,” 1995, 167–68.

  61. On France, for example, see Harth, Ideology and Culture, 1983, 289ff.

  62. See Martino, L’Orient, 1906, 173–76; Makdisi and Nussbaum, “The Arabian Nights” in Historical Context, 2008.

  63. Impey, Chinoiserie, 1977, 12, places the transition from oriental ornament to full-blown China fantasy in the 1730s.

  64. Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, vol. 3, 1993, 498, see 1676 as the turning point in the Dutch literature on Asia. See also ibid., 506–8, 591.

  65. See also Wills, The World from 1450 to 1700, 2009, 140–54; Wills, 1688: A Global History, 2001.

  66. See Osterhammel, China und die Weltgesellschaft, 1989, chs. 6 and 7.

  67. G. K. Goodman, Japan and the Dutch, 2000, 14–15.

  68. G. K. Goodman, Japan and the Dutch, 2000, 18–24. A vivid description is provided in Thunberg, Reise durch einen Theil von Europa, Afrika und Asien, 1794, vol. 2, pt. 1, 1027.

  69. According to Totman, Early Modern Japan, 1993, 233–347.

  70. On the decline of Southeast Asia in the second half of the seventeenth century: Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, vol. 2 (1993), 267ff.

  71. Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia, 2008, 98.

  72. Wyatt, Thailand, 1982, 107–17; of fundamental importance: Van der Cruysse, Louis XIV et le Siam, 1991, 441–78. On the repercussions in Europe, see Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, vol. 3, 1993, 1185–96; Trakulhun, Asiatische Revolutionen, 2017, ch. 6.

  73. Richards, The Mughal Empire, 1993, 252, 282.

  74. Savory, Iran under the Safavids, 1980, 226–54.

  75. On this concept see Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 1974, vol. 3; McNeill, “Gunpowder Empires,” 1993.

  76. Rousseau and Porter, “Introduction,” 1990, 14.

  77. Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia, 2008, ch. 12.

  78. Yakovaki, “ ‘Ancient and Modern Greeks’ in the Late 18th Century,” 2007, 200–201.

  79. Kappeler, Russian Empire, 2001, 171.

  80. See Osterhammel, “Alexander von Humboldt,” 1998; Ette, Alexander von Humboldt und die Globalisierung, 2009.

  81. Grosier, De la Chine, 1818–20.

  82. Société Asiatique, Livre du centinaire (1922), containing the history of the Society by L. Finot (pp. 1–65); Pargiter, Centenary Volume of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1923; Kumar, “The Evolution of Colonial Science in India,” 1990, 59ff.

  83. See M. Koch, Weimaraner Weltbewohner, 2002; Goßens, Weltliteratur, 2011; and, above all, the many valuable studies by Karl S. Guthke.

  84. Rückert quoted in Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 7, Leipzig, 1889, col. 1396–97 (“Ost”).

  85. See Buzard, The Beaten Track, 1993, chs. 12.

  86. Allgemeine deutsche Real-Encyclopädie für die gebildeten Stände: Conversationslexicon, 10th ed., Leipzig 1855, vol. 15, 153.

  87. P. Dumont, “Le voyage en Turquie,” 1982, 339.

  88. Pückler-Muskau, Aus Mehemed Alis Reich, 1985, 354.

  89. Cited in Erker-Sonnabend, Orientalische Fremde, 1987, 3.

  90. Kaukiainen, “Shrinking the World,” 2001.

  91. A. v. Humboldt, Zentral-Asien, 2009, clxxxii.

  92. M. Weber, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen, 1989, 512.

  93. See Delanty, Europe and Asia beyond East and West, 2006.

CHAPTER II. ASIA AND EUROPE: BORDERS, HIERARCHIES, EQUILIBRIA

    1. Hammer-Purgstall, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, 1940, 44.

    2. Gollwitzer, Europabild und Europagedanke, 1964, 59.

    3. Pocock, “Deconstructing Europe,” 1994, 336, and passim.

    4. Lewis and Wigen, Myth of Continents, 1997, esp. 21–72.

    5. Ellis, Journal, 1818, vol. 1, 37.

    6. Barchewitz, Ost-Indianische Reisebeschreibung, 1730, 87.

    7. R. K. Porter, Travels in Georgia, 1821–22, vol. 1, 192.

    8. Morier, Second Journey through Persia, 1818, 246–47.

    9. On this fundamental opposition in world history see Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel, 1975, 7.

  10. See Kappeler, Russian Empire, 2001, 114–53.

  11. A. v. Humboldt, Reise durchs Baltikum, 1983, 121; A. v. Humboldt, Zentral-Asien, 2009, cxvi–cxx. See his day-to-day itinerary in A. v. Humboldt, Briefe aus Russland 1829, 2009, 45–52.

  12. Alexander to Wilhelm v. Humboldt, Aug. 29, 1829, in A. v. Humboldt, Briefe aus Russland 1829, 2009, 182 (original letter in French).

  13. On Humboldt’s visit: A. v. Humboldt, Briefe aus Russland 1829, 2009, 104–8, 116. A. v. Humboldt, Zentral-Asien, 2009, cvi–cxi. A comprehensive description of this border, based on a visit in 1806, is offered in Klaproth, Reise in den Kaukasus, 1812–14, vol. 2, 450–78.

  14. Unverzagt, Gesandtschaft Ihrer Kayserlichen Majestät von Groß-Rußland an den Sinesischen Kayser, 1727, 47.

  15. Klaproth, Reise in den Kaukasus, 1812–14, vol. 2, 467. See also Foust, Muscovite and Mandarin, 1969, 77–82.

  16. Bell, Journey from St. Petersburg to Pekin 1719–22, 1965, 116.

  17. Bell, Journey from St. Petersburg to Pekin 1719–22, 1965, 120.

  18. R. K. Porter, Travels in Georgia, 1821–22, vol. 1, 179. On the war’s impact on the region, see Atkin, Russia and Iran, 1980, 145ff.

  19. See Buisseret, Monarchs, Ministers and Maps, 1992.

  20. Klug, “Das ‘asiatische’ Rußland,” 1987, 271. For example: Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon, 1732–50, vol. 8 (1734), col. 2194.

  21. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe, 1994, 153.

  22. Bassin, “Russia between Europe and Asia,” 1991, 6–7.

  23. “Si après avoir parcouru de l’œil toutes ces vastes provinces, vous jetez la vue sur l’orient, c’est là que les limites de l’Europe de l’Asie se confondent encore.” Voltaire, “Histoire de l’Empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand” [1759], in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 46, 1999, 459.

  24. Pallas, Reise durch die verschiedenen Provinzen des Rußischen Reiches, 1771–76, vol. 1, 365; a fundamental account remains Wisotzki, Zeitströmungen, 1897, 418ff.

  25. W. H. Parker, “Europe: How Far?,” 1960, 286.

  26. The following remarks according to Bassin, “Inventing Siberia,” 1991, 767–71.

  27. Ludwig Wekhrlin 1780, quoted in Gollwitzer, Europabild, 1964, 68.

  28. “Ésclaves attachés aux terres”: Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 22/14, in Œuvres complètes, 1949–51, vol. 2, 671; Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 417 (revised).

  29. See Lemberg, “Zur Entstehung des Osteuropabegriffs im 19. Jahrhundert,” 1985, 74–77. On the debate in Russia see Bassin, “Russia,” 1991, 8–17; Bassin, Imperial Visions, 1999, 49–57.

  30. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 1, 817–18. Gibbon here discusses the recruitment of the Janissaries from among non-Turkish peoples of the empire.

  31. See P. Ritter, Leibniz’ Ägyptischer Plan, 1930; Antognazza, Leibniz, 2009, 117–18. The relevant documents are in Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Politische Schriften, vol. 1, 1983, 217–410. A joint offensive of the European princes against the Ottomans was also suggested by the cleric and former French consul Jean Coppin: Le Bouclier de L’Europe, 1686, 23ff.

  32. Housley, Later Crusades, 1992, 455; Yapp, “Europe in the Turkish Mirror,” 1992, 143.

  33. H. M. Scott, Birth of a Great Power System, 2006, 137–49.

  34. Businello, who was highly regarded as an expert on the Ottoman Empire, also saw Ottoman foreign policy as essentially rational: Businello, Historische Nachrichten, 1778, 168–73.

  35. Quoted in Schumann, Edmund Burkes Anschauungen, 1964, 107.

  36. See Gatterer, Ideal einer allgemeinen Weltstatistik, 1773.

  37. Spittler, Entwurf der Geschichte der europäischen Staaten, 1793–94, vol. 2, 197–241.

  38. Deleyre, Tableau de l’Europe, 1774, 10–11.

  39. Schumann, Edmund Burkes Anschauungen, 1964, 105–7; Chabod, Storia dell’idea d’Europa, 1995, 19.

  40. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 699; Outlines, 1800, 484.

  41. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 701–2; Outlines, 1800, 485–86.

  42. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 705; Outlines, 1800, 360.

  43. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 705; Outlines, 1800, 360.

  44. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 1, 49, draws a contrast between good Roman administration in Asia Minor and bad Ottoman rule over the same region.

  45. Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 1, ccxxvii–ccxxviii.

  46. “Les Turcs sont campés en Europe.” Quoted in Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem, 1968, 63.

  47. Meiners, Betrachtungen, 1795–96, vol. 1, 79.

  48. Eton, Survey of the Turkish Empire, 1801, 13.

  49. Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, 1994, 739–40.

  50. See J. Wallace, Shelley and Greece, 1997, 119ff.

  51. Hammer-Purgstall, Constantinopolis und der Bosporos, 1822, vol. 2, 387.

  52. See Bernal, Black Athena, 1987, 161ff. The controversy surrounding this three-volume work has not diminished the worth of the author’s remarks in volume 1 on the history of ideas.

  53. A notion of Eurasia as a geological entity seems to date back to the Austrian geologist Eduard Suess in 1885: W. H. Parker, “Europe: How Far?,” 1960, 288.

  54. Valéry, Œuvres, 1957–60, vol. 1, 995. A similar formula can be found as early as 1829 in writings of the French geographer Pierre Lapie: W. H. Parker, “Europe: How Far?,” 1960, 288.

  55. For example, Bruzen de la Martinière, Grand Dictionnaire Géographique, 1768, vol. 1, 457; Prichard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, 1836–47, vol. 3, 1–3 ; vol. 5, 602.

  56. A. v. Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur, 1987, 81; Views of Nature, 2014, 84.

  57. See chapter 8 in this book.

  58. For example Subrahmanyam, “Connected Histories,” 1997.

  59. For example, Blome, Geographical Description, 1670, 1–2; Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon, 1732–50, vol. 2 (1732), col. 1844.

  60. Diez, Denkwürdigkeiten, 1811–15, vol. 1, v; similarly: Adelung, Mithridates, 1806–17, vol. 1, 3.

  61. Paulus, Sammlung, 1792–1803, vol. 1 (“Plan,” unpaginated).

  62. Büsching, Große Erdbeschreibung, 1787, 12.

  63. Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 47; Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 1.

  64. Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 48; Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 1.

  65. Said, Orientalism, 1978, 79.

  66. Ogilby, Asia, 1673, “The General Description of Asia” (unpaginated).

  67. Beawes, Lex Mercatoria Rediviva, 1754, esp. vol. 1, 627ff.

  68. Guthrie, A New Geographical, Historical, and Commercial Grammar, 1771, vol. 1, vii; see also vol. 2, 188ff.

  69. “L’Asie a joué longtemps un grand rôle dans l’Univers; il ne lui en reste plus que le souvenir.” Grasset de Saint-Sauveur, Encyclopédie des voyages, 1796, vol. 3, 4.

  70. Volney, “Les ruines, ou méditation sur les révolutions des empires,” in Volney, Œuvres, 1989–98, vol. 1, 248; Volney, The Ruins, 1849, 65.

  71. Volney, “Les ruines, ou méditation sur les révolutions des empires,” in Volney, Œuvres, 1989–98, vol. 1, 248; Volney, The Ruins, 1849, 66.

  72. Leibniz, Der Briefwechsel mit den Jesuiten in China, 2006.

  73. Jaubert, Voyage en Arménie et en Perse, 1821, 314.

  74. Robertson, Progress of Society in Europe, 1972, 25.

  75. Mailly, L’esprit des Croisades, 1780, vol. 1, 3.

  76. Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke (1821–26), vol. 10 (1824), 1–2, 43.

  77. Malte-Brun, Précis de la géographie universelle, 1812–29, vol. 3 (1812), 18–19. On Malte-Brun’s attititude towards non-Europeans see Godlewska, “Napoleon’s Geographers,” 1994, 44–45. Immobility wherever it might be found was seen by geographers of the Napoleonic generation as an ideal precondition for grand schemes of domination and reform. See Godlewska, Geography Unbound, 1999, 214.

  78. “Airs, Waters, Places,” 16, in Hippocrates, 1923, 114–17.

  79. Asiatisches Magazin, vol. 1, pt. (“Stück”) 1, 1806, iii.

  80. Salaberry, Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, 1813, vol. 4, 150.

  81. Ellis, Journal, 1818, vol. 1, 55.

  82. Morier, The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan, 1824.

  83. Dabashi, Persophilia, 2015, 163–64.

  84. A profound study of d’Herbelot is now Bevilacqua, “How to Organize the Orient,” 2016.

  85. In exhaustive detail: Omont, Missions archéologiques, 1902, vol. 1 (853ff: lists of the manuscripts collected).

  86. D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale (1777–79), vol. 1, vi (Introduction by Antoine Galland). This edition, which made the work well known in late eighteenth-century Europe, was the result of a thorough revision of the original by a team of Dutch oriental scholars. See Laurens, Aux sources de l’orientalisme, 1978, 21.

  87. The supplemenary volume of the Dutch edition (vol. 4, 1779) also contains more recent materials on China and Central Asia, among them a history of the “tartars” (i.e., mainly the Mongols) by the learned Jesuit and missionary to China, Claude Visdelou (pp. 46–294).

  88. He uses it extensively, for example, in chapter 57 of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 523–54.

  89. See the careful analysis in Laurens, Aux sources de l’orientalisme, 1978, 37ff.

  90. The conclusion that the alphabetically ordered encyclopedia is nothing but a “pale shadow of polyhistorism” (Schmidt-Biggemann, Topica Universalis, 1983, 291) does not apply in this case.

  91. Fisch, “Der märchenhafte Orient,” 1984, 250.

  92. Hager, Ausführliche Geographie, 1773, vol. 1, 107.

  93. J. R. Forster, Bemerkungen über Gegenstände der physischen Erdbeschreibung, 1783, 256; Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, 1971, 21.

  94. Büsching, Auszug aus seiner Erdbeschreibung, 1785, 20. On Büsching’s significance for the history of geography see M. Bowen, Empiricism and Geographical Thought, 1981, 154–59; on Büsching as a scholar with international connections see Hoffmann and Osipov, Geographie, Geschichte und Bildungswesen, 1995, esp. 18–29.

  95. Riello, Cotton, 2013, chs. 5 and 10.

  96. Meiners, Grundriß der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1793, 29–30.

  97. “En vérité, je crois toujours de plus en plus qu’il y a un certain Génie qui n’a point encore été hors de notre Europe, ou qui du moins ne s’en est pas beaucoup éloigné.” Fontenelle, “Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes habités,” 1991, 129–30.

  98. Dubos, Reflexions, 1719, vol. 2, 146. Very similar: Hager, Ausführliche Geographie, 1773, vol. 1, 111.

  99. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 1, 228. In a similar way, Heeren points out that Europe surpassed all other parts of the world in the maximization and efficient use of its military and political power resources: Heeren, Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 15 (1826), 4.

100. See chapter 10 in this volume.

101. Brougham, An Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers, 1803, vol. 2, 198.

102. Brougham, An Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers, 1803, vol. 2. 235.

103. “Seuls nous sousmittons à nos volontés les forces même les plus rédoutables de la nature.” Malte-Brun, Précis de la géographie universelle, 1812–29, vol. 6 (1826), 2. See also Adas, Machines, 1989, 79.

104. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 803, note 28.

105. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes” (1755), in Rousseau, Œuvres complètes, 1959–95, vol. 3 (1975), 208.

106. Sprengel, Vom Ursprung des Negerhandels, 1779, who chronicles, in a highly critical spirit, the emergence of the slave trade up to the mid-seventeenth century. Chronologically speaking, Sprengel, in his provincial German backwater, was among the earliest European critics of the slave trade. On the Anglo-American mainstream of early abolitionism see D. B. Davis, Problem of Slavery, 1975.

107. Robertson, Historical Disquisition, 1812, 181.

108. Beawes, Lex Mercatoria, 1754, 18.

109. Pradt, Les trois âges des colonies, 1801–2, vol. 1, 21.

110. Thanks to the efforts of European scholars such as Sir William Jones und Charles-Marie de La Condamine.

111. Zimmermann, Die Erde und ihre Bewohner, 1810–14, vol. 1 (1810), 8–15.

112. J. R. Forster, Geschichte der Entdeckungen und Schiffahrten im Norden, 1784, 8. On the civilizing effects of shipping already in ancient times see Dunbar, Essays on the History of Mankind, 1781, vol. 2, 299ff.

113. Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” in Kant, Political Writings, 1970, 106; Immanuel Kant, “Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf,” in Kant, Werke, 1968, vol. 9, 214 (“entfernte Weltteile mit einander friedlich in Verhältnisse kommen”).

114. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 1970, 106–7 (emphases in original); Kant, “Zum ewigen Frieden,” in Kant, Werke, 1968, vol. 9, 214–16: “Vergleicht man hiermit das inhospitable Betragen der gesitteten, vornehmlich handeltreibenden Staaten unseres Weltteils, so geht die Ungerechtigkeit, die sie in dem Besuche fremder Länder und Völker (welches ihnen mit dem Erobern derselben für einerlei gilt) beweisen, bis zum Erschrecken weit. Amerika, die Negerländer, die Gewürzinseln, das Kap etc. waren, bei ihrer Entdeckung, für sie Länder, die keinem angehörten; denn die Einwohner rechneten sie für nichts. In Ostindien (Hindustan) brachten sie, unter dem Vorwande bloß beabsichtigter Handeldsniederlagen, fremde Kriegsvölker hinein, mit ihnen aber Unterdrückung der Eingebornen, Aufwiegelung der verschiedenen Staaten desselben zu weit ausgebreiteten Kriegen, Hungersnot, Aufruhr, Treulosigkeit, und wie die Litanei aller Übel, die das menschliche Geschlecht drücken, weiter lauten mag. China und Japan (Nippon), die den Versuch mit solchen Gästen gemacht hatten, haben daher weislich, jenes zwar den Zugang, aber nicht den Eingang, dieses auch den ersteren nur einem einzigen europäischen Volk, den Holländern, erlaubt, die sie aber doch dabei, wie Gefangene, von der Gemeinschaft mit den Eingebornen ausschließen.” On the eighteenth-century debate about closed countries and the desirability of their being “opened up” see Osterhammel, “Gastfreiheit und Fremdenabwehr,” 1997, 404–12.

115. Schlözer, WeltGeschichte, 1785–89, vol. 1, 116–17.

116. Schlözer, WeltGeschichte, 1785–89, vol. 1, 75.

117. Schlözer, WeltGeschichte, 1785–89, vol. 1, 86.

118. “Compaß, Pulver, Papir und Druckerei, Brillen, Uhren und Posten.” Schlözer, WeltGeschichte, 1785–89, vol. 1, 104.

119. Schlözer, WeltGeschichte, 1785–89, vol. 1, 105. See also his charming world history for children: Schlözer, Vorbereitung zur Weltgeschichte für Kinder, 2001.

120. On the iconography of European primacy in the eighteenth century see the magnificent study: Wintle, The Image of Europe, 2009, 282–348.

121. “Der uns nicht nur über alle unsre ZeitGenossen der übrigen WeltTheile, sondern auch über die aufgeklärtesten Völker der älteren Zeiten hoch erhebt.” Schlözer, WeltGeschichte, 1785–89, vol. 1, 104–5. Schlözer’s concept of world history, though never developed at length, is more interesting today than that of any of his contemporaries. A good summary is Muhlack, Geschichtswissenschaft im Humanismus und in der Aufklärung, 1991, 133–37.

122. On the history of this enormous project see Abbattista, “The Business of Paternoster Row,” 1985. An almost complete, and in many places augmented, German translation was Baumgarten and Semler, Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie, 1744–67.

123. See Pigulla, China in der deutschen Weltgeschichtsschreibung, 1996, 150, 222.

124. See the great biography: Franklin, Orientalist Jones, 2011.

125. W. Jones, Works, 1807, vol. 1, 10.

CHAPTER III. CHANGING PERSPECTIVES

    1. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. “Sudelbücher,” Heft G [1779–83], Aphorismus 183, in Lichtenberg, Schriften und Briefe (1968–74), vol. 2 (1971), 166.

    2. Richardson, Dissertation on the Languages, Literature and Manners of Eastern Nations, 1778, pt. 2, 154.

    3. For example (a testimonial from the mid-1740s) Poivre, Un manuscrit inédit de Pierre Poivre, 1968, 40.

    4. An example for this is coastal Sri Lanka under the VOC (from c. 1670 onwards). Silva, History of Sri Lanka, 1981, 197–98.

    5. Two excellent, and complementary, surveys are C. H. Parker, Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age, 2010; Gunn, First Globalization: The Eurasian Exchange, 2003; Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 1981–84, is inexhaustible.

    6. Riello, Cotton, 2013.

    7. Hanway, Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea, 1753, vol. 2, 27.

    8. Symes, Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, 1800, 312, 319, 321ff.

    9. S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, 1800, 263.

  10. S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, 1800, 81. At a later stage, Turner and the raja exchanged medicines (153–54).

  11. See in general Thomas, Entangled Objects, 1991.

  12. Castilhon, Considérations, 1769, 24.

  13. Démeunier , L’esprit des usages et des coutumes, 1776, vol. 1, v.

  14. As general surveys see Walvin, Fruits of Empire, 1997; McCabe, History of Global Consumption, 2015; Berg, Goods From the East, 1600–1800, 2015.

  15. See also Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, 1978, 15.

  16. See Winch, Classical Political Economy, 1965, 9–14; Pitts, A Turn to Empire, 2005, 52–58.

  17. Very important on Burke’s critique of empire and colonialism is Whelan, Edmund Burke and India, 1996, esp. chs. 1 and 4; see also Bourke, Empire and Revolution, 2015, esp. chs. 7 and 10.

  18. E. Burke, “Opening of Impeachment, 16 February 1788,” in Burke, India: The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment, 1991, 346.

  19. See Pagden, Encounters, 1993, 141–88.

  20. Robertson, Historical Disquisition, 1812.

  21. Schlegel, “Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier,” 1975. The most common English translation is “On the Indian Language, Literature, and Philosophy,” 1849.

  22. On Herder and India see Halbfass, India and Europe, 1988, 69–72; Ghosh, Johann Gottfried Herder’s Image of India, 1990.

  23. See also the excellent chapter on Robertson in O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment, 1997, 129–66; on Robertson’s view on India’s unique position in world history see Kontler, Translations, Histories, Enlightenments, 2014, 141–45.

  24. Shackleton, Montesquieu, 1961, 32–33; Dodds, Les récits des voyages, 1929, 41–56.

  25. The earliest text featuring an “exotic observer” of Europe seems to have been L’espion du Grand-Seigneur (1684) by Jean-Paul Marana (1642?–1693). See Weißhaupt, Europa sieht sich mit fremdem Blick, 1979, vol. 2, pt. 1, 3–15.

  26. Montesquieu, “Lettres persanes,” in Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu, vol. 1 (2004), 403; Montesquieu, Persian Letters, 1973, 185. The numbering of the letters in the critical edition differs from the conventional numbering as used in this English translation.

  27. Montesquieu, “Lettres persanes,” in Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu, vol. 1 (2004), 243–44; Montesquieu, Persian Letters, 1973, 98–99.

  28. A motif in numerous travel accounts. As late as the 1820s, the Scottish diplomat John Crawfurd was annoyed by the Siamese penchant to put themselves above anyone else: Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China, 1967, 345–46.

  29. D. Campbell, Journey over Land to India, 1796, pt. 2, 21.

  30. Adelung, Geschichte der Schiffahrten, 1768, 439.

  31. Court de Gebelin, Monde Primitif, 1777–81, vol. 8, lix.

  32. Ferguson, Essay on the History of Civil Society, 1966, 22–23.

  33. This is how Pocock characterizes Ferguson’s work: Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, vol. 2, 1999, 330.

  34. Ferguson, Essay on the History of Civil Society, 1966, 75.

  35. Dunbar, Essays on the History of Mankind, 1781, vol. 2, 161.

  36. Dunbar, Essays on the History of Mankind, 1781, vol. 2, 162.

  37. Sir William Temple, “Of Heroic Virtue,” in Temple, Works, 1814, vol. 3, 322.

  38. See Dreitzel, “Justis Beitrag zur Politisierung der deutschen Aufklärung,” 1987, 167–68.

  39. J. Campbell, Present State of Europe, 1750, 12–13.

  40. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, Preface (“Vorrede”), 3.

  41. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 165–87.

  42. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 170.

  43. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 168.

  44. See M. Harbsmeier, Wilde Völkerkunde, 1994, 209–24.

  45. His source is a report, often cited in the eighteenth century, by the Franconian naturalist, Michael Peter Kolb, who spent the years 1704 to 1707 at the cape: Caput Bonae Spei Hodiernum (1719).

  46. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 178.

  47. Justi mistakenly writes “Sineser” (Chinese).

  48. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 182.

  49. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 246.

  50. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 187.

  51. Varenius, Descriptio, 1974, 142. For the Chinese see similar remarks in Le Gobien, Histoire de l’édit de l’Empereur de la Chine, 1698, 218–19.

  52. David Hume. “Of the Standard of Taste,” in Hume, Essays, 1987, 227.

  53. Quoted in Vyverberg, Human Nature, 1989, 60.

  54. Démeunier , L’esprit des usages et des coutumes, 1776, vol. 1, viii.

  55. Walckenaer, Essai sur l’histoire de l’espèce humaine, 1798, 249–50.

  56. For example, Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 1 (1827), 414–15.

  57. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 2 (1828), 508–10.

  58. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 9 (1833), vii.

  59. A. Hamilton, New Account of the East Indies, 1930, vol. 1, 144.

  60. The medical doctor, botanist, and North African traveler, Johann Ernst Hebenstreit (1731), quoted in Thomson, Barbary and Enlightenment, 1987, 38. Similarly (on the Knights of Malta): C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 18.

  61. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 252.

  62. See Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 151–232.

  63. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte der Goldenen Horde, 1840, 79, also 81. See also the strong condemnation of the “barbarity” of the crusaders in Hammer-Purgstall, Constantinopolis, 1822, vol. 1, 93–95, 131 –32.

  64. Montesquieu, “Lettres persanes,” in Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu, vol. 1 (2004), 328; Montesquieu, Persian Letters, 1973, 148–49.

  65. Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 24, 330–76. On Benoist see Pfister, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jésuites, 1934, vol. 2, 813–26; on his work as a hydraulic engineer see Zheng Yangwen, China on the Sea, 2012, 190–98.

  66. Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 24, 334.

  67. Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 24, 375. See also Kästner, “Das Gespräch des Orientreisenden mit dem heidnischen Herrscher,” 1997.

  68. An English translation, with a detailed introduction by the editiors, is Jeyaraj and Young, Hindu-Christian Epistolary Self-Disclosures, 2013.

  69. “Introduction,” in Jeyaraj and Young, Hindu-Christian Epistolary Self-Disclosures, 2013, 3–4; Nørgaard, Mission und Obrigkeit, 1988 (still a good account; 308 on the number of missionaries).

  70. Liebau, Die indischen Mitarbeiter der Tranquebarmission, 2008, 212.

  71. “Was anlanget, was unter den Christen zu verwerffen ist, so sind viel böse Gebräuche bey ihnen eingeführet. Sie reinigen die Zähne nicht. Sie waschen sich nicht, wenn sie auf dem Abtritt gewesen. Sie reinigen sich nicht in heiligen Teichen. Die Weiber halten nach ihrer Zeit keine Reinigung. Sie halten sich mit dem Speichel nicht reinlich. Wenn sie Leute von verachtetem Geschlecht anrühren, reinigen sie sich nicht wieder. Sie schweren und fluchen zu allen Dingen. Wenn sie das Sacrament geben, so sagen sie, dass das Brodt der heilige Leib sey, und trincken Christi heiliges Blut, welches ich nicht recht begreifen kan. Und weil unter ihnen in vielen Dingen ein Mangel der Reinlichkeit ist, dabey auch Kuh-Fleisch essen, so wäre zu wünschen, dass diese Dinge nicht unter ihnen wären, es würden alle Malabaren zu ihrer Religion treten.” Ziegenbalg and Gründler, Malabarische Correspondenz, pt. 2 (1717), 902–3; Jeyaraj and Young, Hindu-Christian Epistolary Self-Disclosures, 2013, 254.

  72. “Nun ist es zwar wahr, dass viele Sachen unter uns zu tadeln seyn; auch gehen allerley Sünden und Ungerechtigkeiten bey uns im Schwange, welches nicht seyn solte, aber gleichwol kan man nicht alles verwerffen. Wären wir Heiden und hätten einen gantz falschen GOttes-Dienst, so würden gantz keine Tugenden und gute Wercke unter uns zu finden seyn. Nun aber sind ja so viel Tugenden unter uns, und werden allenthalben von diesen und ienen gute Wercke ausgeübet: Ja man findet Leute unter uns, die so heilig leben, dass man sie keiner Sünden überzeugen kan. Soll denn nun ein solch Gesetz, das alle Sünden verwirfft und zum Guten führet, ein falsches Gesetz seyn, dadurch man nicht selig werden könne? Eine jedwede Nation hat ihre besondere Tracht, Sitten und Rechte, die der andern Nation ungereimt vorkommen. Also ists auch mit der Religion. Gott ist mannigfältig in seinen Creaturen und mannigfältig in seinen Wercken. Daher will er auch mannigfältig verehret werden.… Hiernebst finden wir gleichfals an den Christen, die aus Europa in unser Land kommen, vieles zu tadeln und sollen wir anders die Religion aus den Wercken urtheilen, so können wir gar wenig Gutes von der christlichen Religion gedencken. Denn wir sehen, dass wenig Gerechtigkeit und Keuschheit unter ihnen sey. Sie üben wenig gute Wercke aus, geben wenig Almosen, haben keine Buße unter sich, nehmen gern Geschencke, trincken sich voll in starckem Geträncke, martern die lebendige Creaturen und gebrauchen sie zu ihrer Speise, halten gar wenig auf die leibliche Reinigkeit, verachten alle andere neben sich, sind sehr geitzig, hoffärtig und zornig.” Ziegenbalg and Gründler, Malabarische Correspondenz, pt. 1 (1714), 456–57; Jeyaraj and Young, Hindu-Christian Epistolary Self-Disclosures, 2013, 186 (translation amended).

  73. Poivre, “Voyage de Pierre Poivre en Cochinchine,” 1885, 382.

  74. Hüttner, Nachricht von der britischen Gesandtschaftsreise durch China und einen Teil der Tartarei, 1996, 117.

  75. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 299.

  76. See the superb biography: Baack, Undying Curiosity, 2014.

  77. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 189.

  78. Mémoires concernant l’histoire … des Chinois, 1776–1814, vol. 2 (1777), 372–73. These mémoires were written and edited by ex-Jesuits after the suppression of their order.

  79. H. Burney, Burney Papers, 1910–14, vol. 1 (1910), 59.

  80. Moltke, Briefe über Zustände und Begebenheiten in der Türkei, 1987, 349.

  81. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 426

  82. Thunberg, Reise durch einen Theil von Europa, Afrika und Asien, 1794, vol. 2, pt. 1, 21.

  83. Thunberg, Reise durch einen Theil von Europa, Afrika und Asien, 1794, vol. 2, pt. 1, 12.

  84. Thunberg, Reise durch einen Theil von Europa, Afrika und Asien, 1794, vol. 2, pt. 1, 20.

  85. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 442–43.

  86. Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy from the Governor General of India to the Court of Ava, 1834, vol. 2, 114.

  87. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 337. Indigenous amazement at the Europeans’ strange penchant for traveling is a frequent motive in travel accounts. Chardin (Voyages … en Perse et autres lieux de l’Orient, 1735, vol. 2, 53) encountered it in Persia, Alexander von Humboldt (Reise auf dem Río Magdalena, 1986, 93) in South America.

  88. S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, 1800, 269–78.

  89. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 74, similar remarks: 59, 65. On Barrow see Walter, John Barrow, 1994; Angster, Erdbeeren und Piraten, 2012.

CHAPTER IV. TRAVELING

    1. Elphinstone, Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, 1839, vol. 1, 34.

    2. C. A. Bayly, “Elphinstone, Mountstuart (1779–1859),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., Jan. 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8752, accessed Dec. 10, 2016].

    3. The scene is described in Malcolm’s diary, partly published in Kaye, Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir John Malcolm, 1856, vol. 2, 444–46.

    4. On Malcolm as an imperial commander and administrator see Pasley, “Send Malcolm!,” 1982; on his scholarly work and his role as an “ideologue of the British Empire” see Harrington, Sir John Malcolm, 2010.

    5. Harrington, Sir John Malcolm, 2010, 77–78.

    6. One of his many pamphlets (around 1811) carries the frightening title “Leichenstein auf dem Grabe der chinesischen Gelehrsamkeit des Herrn Joseph Hager” (“Tombstone on the grave of Mr. Joseph Hager’s Chinese scholarship”).

    7. Mommsen, “Goethe und China in ihren Wechselbeziehungen,” 1985, 32.

    8. For example: A. v. Humboldt and Ritter, Briefwechsel, 2010. Further study of this cosmopolitan academic operator has to be based on the documents collected in Klaproth, Briefe und Dokumente, 1999; Walravens, Julius Klaproth, 1999.

    9. Schwab, Oriental Renaissance, 1984, 184.

  10. Cordier, Mélanges d’histoire et de géographie orientale, 1814–23, vol. 4, 53, 56–57. Potocki was the author of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa.

  11. G. T. Staunton, Memoirs, 1856.

  12. See G. T. Staunton, Ta Tsing Leu Lee, 1810.

  13. H. Beck, Alexander von Humboldt, 1959–61, vol. 2, 91–92.

  14. Edinburgh Review, October 1815, 417–18.

  15. A massive compendium on all aspects of early modern travel, mainly in Europe, is Roche, Humeurs vagabondes, 2003, supplemented by Roche, Les circulations dans l’Europe moderne, 2011. For an introduction to travel writing see Hulme and Youngs, Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, 2002.

  16. “… des travaux pénibles et dangereux.” Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 29. On connections between “travel” and “travail” (French for “work”) see Buzard, Beaten Track, 1993, 33.

  17. A question already asked in the sixteenth century by Jean Bodin. See Grafton, New Worlds and Ancient Texts, 1993, 124, 126.

  18. Joseph Dehergne, “Chronologie du P. Antoine Gaubil.” Appendix in Gaubil, Correspondance de Pékin, 1970, 867ff.; see also Pfister, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques, 1934, 667–93.

  19. Sacy, Henri Bertin, 1970, vi.

  20. Lemny, Les Cantemir, 2009.

  21. Penzer, The Harêm, 1936, 44–49.

  22. See Thomaz de Bossière, Jean-François Gerbillon, S. J., 1994, 169–71.

  23. See the translation of his report: Hasan, Westward Bound: Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb, 2005. On him and other eighteenth-century Indian observers see Khan, Indian Muslim Perceptions of the West during the Eighteenth Century, 1998; Alam and Subrahmanyam, Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries, 2007, 243–95; Green, The Love of Strangers, 2016 (mainly based on the diary of the Persian student Mirza Salih).

  24. Alam and Subrahmanyam, Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries, 2007, 244–45.

  25. Tahtāwi, An Imam in Paris, 2004.

  26. I mention only texts of which Western translations are available: Peyrefitte, Un choc de cultures, vol. 1: La vision des Chinois, 1992; M. H. Fisher, The Travels of Dean Mahomet, 1997; Philipp and Perlman, Abd-al-Rahman al-Jabarti´s History of Egypt, 1994; Khodja, Le Miroir, 2003.

  27. Since the history of “discoveries” has somewhat fallen out of favor in recent years, the best surveys can be found in the older literature: Devèze, L’Europe et le monde à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, 1970; Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire au siècle des lumières, 1971, 25ff.; Parry, Trade and Dominion, 1971, 273ff.; Villiers and Duteil, L’Europe la mer et les colonies, 1997. A recent magisterial summary of enormous size is Reinhard, Unterwerfung der Welt, 2016. A unique biographical tool is Henze, Enzyklopädie der Entdecker und Erforscher der Erde, 1978–2004.

  28. Spate, Paradise Found and Lost, 1988, remains an excellent survey. For present-day approaches to the region see Armitage and Bashford, Pacific Histories, 2014.

  29. Shelvocke, A Voyage round the World, 1726, 460.

  30. “Die vormahls unbekannte Länder sind von den curieusen Europæern so offt besuchet und nach allen Umstände beschrieben, daß sie uns nach gerade eben so bekandt als unser eignes Vaterland werden.” Unverzagt, Gesandtschaft, 1727, preface (“Vorrede,” unpaginated). Similarly already Magalhães, New History of China, 1688, preface (unpaginated).

  31. Barchewitz, Reisebeschreibung, 1730, unpaginated.

  32. Perry, View of the Levant, 1743, ii. The glut of literature on Turkey was already lamented by Grelot, Relation nouvelle d’un voyage de Constantinopel, 1680, “Avis au lecteur” (unpaginated).

  33. E. Scott Waring, A Tour to Sheeraz, 1807, v.

  34. Moor, Hindu Pantheon, 1810, 354. Nonetheless, the author then proceeds to offer his impressions at great length.

  35. J. Johnson, Oriental Voyager, 1807, vi. See also C.L.J. de Guignes, Voyages à Peking, 1808, vol. 2, 147.

  36. Ellis, Journal, 1818, vol. 1, 61–62. A comment on this in Asiatic Review 1818, 480. See also Krusenstern, Voyage round the World, 1813, vol. 2, 302.

  37. Sprengel, Geschichte der Maratten, 1791, 13.

  38. A. Hamilton, New Account of the East Indies, 1930, vol. 1, 5–6. A prominent culprit was Fryer, A New Account of East India and Persia (1909–15).

  39. Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 18, 416ff.

  40. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 4, 423ff.; Grosier, Description générale de la Chine, 1785, 177–87; Universal History, 1779–84, vol. 7 (1781), 323ff.

  41. See Lee Ki-baik, New History of Korea, 1984, 239–40.

  42. Lee Ki-baik, New History of Korea, 1984, 241; P. H. Lee, Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, 1996, vol. 2, 109–59.

  43. Translations 1670 into French, 1672 into German, 1704 into English, published in Churchill and Churchill, A Collection of Voyages and Travels (3rd ed., 1744–46: vol. 4, 607–32), reprinted in Ledyard, The Dutch Come to Korea, 1971, 169–226, with a good introduction. A more recent translation is Hamel, Hamel’s Journal, 1994. See also Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 1993, 486–88, 1785–97. The first European to reach Korea was a Dutch castaway in 1628.

  44. B. Hall, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 1818; M’Leod, Voyage of His Majesty’s Ship Alceste, 1819.

  45. B. Hall, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 1818, 6.

  46. B. Hall, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 1818, 7.

  47. B. Hall, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 1818, 10.

  48. B. Hall, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 1818, 17.

  49. B. Hall, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 1818, 32–33.

  50. B. Hall, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 1818, 33–34.

  51. B. Hall, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 1818, 37.

  52. British travelers were always delighted to encounter non-European “gentlemen.” In a similar vein, aristocratic visitors from the European continent to the United States were enthralled by nobility among the Native Americans. See Cannadine, Ornamentalism, 2001; Liebersohn, Aristocratic Encounters, 1998.

  53. B. Hall, Account of a Voyage of Discovery, 1818, 41.

  54. M’Leod, Voyage of His Majesty’s Ship Alceste, 1819, 104ff.

  55. Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 23, 182ff. Apparently Father Gaubil in Peking had also met with tribute bearers from the Ryûkyû Islands: Gaubil, Correspondance de Pékin, 1970, 708.

  56. Jartoux’s letter from Peking (dated April 12, 1711) was first published in issue 10 of the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses. It gained widespread circulation through a reprint in a popular collection of travel accounts: Bernard, Recueil de voyages du Nord, 1732–34, vol. 4, 348–65. Jartoux’s fellow Jesuit Joseph François Lafitau read it in Quebec in 1715 and came to the conclusion that the same plant was used in Iroquois pharmacology, which he held in high esteem: Lafitau, Mémoire concernant la precieuse plante du Gin seng de Tartarie, 1718, 6–12, 49–50.

  57. See Sobel, Longitude, 1996.

  58. Spate, Pacific since Magellan, 1979–88, vol. 3, 191.

  59. Kotzebue, Entdeckungs-Reise in die Süd-See, 1821, vol. 2, 176. See more generally Lawrence, “Disciplining Disease,” 1996.

  60. On the rise of scientific travel and navigation see Macdonald and Withers, Geography, Technology and Instruments of Exploration, 2015.

  61. Vogel, Zehn-Jährige, Jetzo auffs neue revidirt und vermehrte Ost-Indianische Reise-Beschreibung, 1716, preface (“Vorrede,” unpaginated). About the author see Gelder, Het Oost-Indisch avontuur, 1997, 267–68. In this excellent book see also a detailed account of life onboard VOC East Indiamen (149–72).

  62. Vogel, Zehn-Jährige, Jetzo auffs neue revidirt und vermehrte Ost-Indianische Reise-Beschreibung, 1716, 149.

  63. Vogel, Zehn-Jährige, Jetzo auffs neue revidirt und vermehrte Ost-Indianische Reise-Beschreibung, 1716, 153–54.

  64. Poivre, Un manuscrit inédit de Pierre Poivre, 1968, 17–25.

  65. Schlözer, Vorlesungen über Land- und Seereisen, 1962, 18.

  66. J. Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, 1813, vol 1, 12.

  67. See as a case study Edwards, Story of the Voyage, 1994, 53ff.

  68. Hoskins, British Routes to India, 1928, 82. On the route to China see Dermigny, La Chine, 1964, vol. 1, 265–73. A hugely detailed contemporary source is Elmore, Directory, 1802.

  69. Morier, Journey through Persia, 1812, 181, 269–70; E. Scott Waring, Tour to Sheeraz, 1807, 84.

  70. Beckmann, Litteratur der älteren Reisebeschreibungen, 1807–10, vol. 1, 492.

  71. Wessels, Early Jesuit Travelers, 1924, 1–41 (a masterpiece of travel history).

  72. Wessels, Early Jesuit Travelers, 1924, 164–202.

  73. Wessels, Early Jesuit Travelers, 1924, 205–82; Luciano Petech, “Introduzione,” in Petech, I missionari italiani nel Tibet e nel Nepal, 1954–56, vol. 5, xiii–xviii; Pomplun, Jesuit on the Roof of the World, 2010, 45–71.

  74. Henze, Enzyklopädie der Entdecker und Erforscher der Erde, 1978–2004, vol. 1, 373–77.

  75. Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, 1790, vol. 1, dedication.

  76. His papers were edited by the Swiss polymath Johann Bernoulli: Bernoulli, Description historique et géographique de l’Inde, 1786–89. See also Windisch, Geschichte der Sanskrit-Philologie, 1917–20, vol. 1, 14–15.

  77. Leibniz, Briefwechsel mit den Jesuiten in China, 2006, 627–28 (fn. 1); Duteil, Le mandat du ciel, 1994, 76.

  78. The Izmailov-Bell embassy of 1719/20 needed sixteen months. The Ides Mission of 1692/93 required twenty months to make its way from Moscow to Peking but marched speedily back in less than a year. Much detail in Joyeux, Der Transitweg von Moskau nach Daurien, 1981.

  79. Jenour, Route to India, 1791, 5–6.

  80. See Douglas Carruthers, “Introduction,” in Carruthers, Desert Route to India, 1928, xv, xxii, xxvi–xxx.

  81. E.g., Chatfield, Historical Review of the Commercial, Political and Moral State of Hindostan, 1808, xxvi et seq., including speculations about Napoleon’s possible route to India.

  82. See G. K. Goodman, Japan and the Dutch, 2000.

  83. See Elison, Deus Destroyed, 1973, 238. A contemporary report is in Kapitza, Japan in Europa, 1990, vol. 2, 153–59.

  84. Raffles, Report on Japan, 1929; Wurtzburg, Raffles, 1954, 282–84.

  85. See Golovnin, Memoirs of a Captivity in Japan, 1824; Rikord, Narrative of My Captivity in Japan, 1818; Kapitza, Japan in Europa, 1990, vol. 2, 954–1007; Keene, Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1969, 144–47; Barratt, Russia in Pacific Waters, 1981, 164–72.

  86. See Krusenstern, Voyage round the World, 1813, vol. 1, 251; Kapitza, Japan in Europa, 1990, vol. 2, 848–90; Barratt, Russia and the South Pacific, 1988–92, vol. 2, 9–19, 91–97.

  87. Kaempfer, History of Japan, 1727, vol. 2, 393–568; Kaempfer, Geschichte und Beschreibung Japans, 1777–79, vol. 2, 143–382; critical edition: Kaempfer, Heutiges Japan, 2001, vol. 1, 308–500; modern English translation: Kaempfer, Kaempfer’s Japan, 1999, 239–397; Thunberg, Reise durch einen Theil von Europa, Afrika und Asien, 1794, vol. 2, pt. 1, 61–136. On the circumstances of travel in Japan at the time see G. K. Goodman, Japan, 1986, 27–29. Rietbergen, “Ten hove gegaan,” 2004, 284–96, deals with the Dutch diplomatic missions to Edo on the basis of VOC sources.

  88. A typical description of Canton in this manner is Wathen, Journal of a Voyage in 1811 and 1812 to Madras and China, 1814, 185ff. With amazingly little prejudice: Lisiansky, A Voyage round the World in the Years 1803, 4, 5, & 6, 1814, 278–93.

  89. This was the opinion, for example, of Sir William Chambers, the architect and promotor of the Chinese landscape garden. His Chinese experience was limited to Canton. See John Harris, Sir William Chambers, 1970, 146.

  90. This is not the place to provide bibliographical details of the huge literature on China produced by the Jesuits. For the seventeenth century see Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe (1993), books 1 and 4; a similar survey for the eighteenth century is still lacking. On the Jesuit presence in general see Standaert, “Jesuits in China,” 2008; in more detail: Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 2001.

  91. An excellent list of the most influential European sources on China from Marco Polo to the Opium Wars is in Lehner, China in European Encyclopaedias, 2011, 83–90.

  92. Le Comte, Nouveaux mémoires sur l’état present de la Chine (1697). On this see Mungello, Curious Land, 1985, 329–42.

  93. A good survey of this innovative and long-running serial is F. C. Hsia, Sojourners in a Strange Land, 2009, 132–36.

  94. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735.

  95. F. C. Hsia, Sojourners in a Strange Land, 2009, 140. A superbly detailed study of the making and impact of the work is Landry-Deron, La preuve par la Chine, 2002.

  96. Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Méthode pour étudier la géographie, 1741, vol. 1, 397.

  97. Grosier, Description générale de la Chine, 1785; Grosier, De la Chine, 1818–20.

  98. On the decline and termination of the Jesuit mission in China see the classic work Rochemonteix, Joseph Amiot, 1915, esp. 251ff.; also Krahl, China Missions, 1964, 223ff.; and at a more general level Hsia, “The End of the Jesuit Mission in China,” 2015.

  99. See the list in Demel, Als Fremde in China, 1992, 388.

100. See Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar, 1995.

101. See Foust, Muscovite and Mandarin, 1969, 323–28; Fu Lo-shu, Documentary Chronicle, 1966, vol. 1, 361–62, 367.

102. Conder, Modern Traveller, 1830, vol. 13, 267.

103. Historical surveys of the European knowledge about Southeast Asia in the early nineteenth century are W. Hamilton, East-India Gazetteer, 1828, and, in staggering detail, C. Ritter, Erdkunde, 1832–47, vol. 3 (1835); vol. 4, pt. (“Abteilung”) 1 (1835).

104. See Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 1993, 380–81, and 1248–99 as a survey of European knowledge about Vietnam.

105. For example Grosier, Description générale de la Chine, 1785, 187–229.

106. On travel and exploration in the Himalayas up to 1829 see C. Ritter, Erdkunde, 1832–47, vol. 2 (1833), 482–585.

107. Kirkpatrick, An Account of the Kingdom of Nepaul, 1811; F. Hamilton, An Account of the Kingdom of Nepal, 1819.

108. Hüllmann, Historisch-kritischer Versuch über die Lamaische Religion, 1796, 45.

109. Grosier, Description générale de la Chine, 1785, 229–41.

110. Barthold, Die geographische und historische Erforschung des Orients, 1913, 187–88.

111. On both, see Bishop, Myth of Shangri-La, 1989, 25–64.

112. See Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 1993, 1895–96; Richards, Mughal Empire, 1993, 287.

113. See Schwab, Oriental Renaissance, 1984.

114. Schwab, Vie d’Anquetil-Duperron, 1934, 105.

115. J. Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, 1813, vol. 1, 428.

116. Rennell, Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan, 1793; Duff, History of the Mahrattas, 1826; Buchanan, Journey from Madras, 1807. On Buchanan and other writers who saw Indian landscapes and local life in terms of “improvement” see Nayar, English Writing and India, 2008, 75–93.

117. Bastian, Geschichte der Indochinesen, 1866, 4.

118. Zimmermann, Versuch einer Anwendung der zoologischen Geographie auf die Geschichte der Erde, 1783, 99–100. On the history of European travel to and in Iran see Gabriel, Erforschung Persiens, 1952, 60ff.; Firby, European Travellers, 1988; Chaybany, Les voyages en Perse, 1971.

119. E. Bowen, The Gentleman, Tradesman and Traveller’s Pocket Library, 1753, 285.

120. A survey of the most important accounts of Iran between 1722 and 1800 is Gabriel, Erforschung Persiens, 1952, 120–31.

121. On the complex diplomacy involving Iran around 1800 see Greaves, “Iranian Relations with Great Britain and British India,” 1991.

122. See Thomson, Barbary and Enlightenment, 1987; Brahimi, Voyageurs français du XVIIIe siècle in Barbarie, 1976.

123. Thompson, Wonderful Things, 2015, 71–72. This is now the standard history of Egyptology.

124. Blount, Voyage into the Levant, 1671, 3.

125. Thompson, Wonderful Things, 2015, 79–82. On Pocock see also a good chapter in Damiani, Enlightened Observers, 1979, 70–104.

126. See Höllmann, Ägyptisches Alltagsleben, 1990.

127. The antiquarian knowledge prior to Volney’s travels is summarized in Carré, Voyageurs et écrivains français, 1990, vol. 1, 65–78.

128. See the impressive documentation for the golden age of Ottoman power: Yerasimos, Les voyageurs dans l’Empire Ottoman, 1991.

129. Pitton de Tournefort, Relation d’un voyage du Levant, 1717, vol. 1, 464, 469. An anthology of French descriptions of Instanbul around 1800 is Berchet, Le voyage en Orient, 1985, 429ff.; see also Constantine, Early Greek Travellers, 1984.

130. Hammer-Purgstall, Constantinopolis, 1822, vol. 1, xiii, here on pp. xi–xxvii a commentary on the earlier literature. Hammer, in his time the leading authority, considers the best accounts of the city to be those by Busbecq (1581), Du Cange (1682), Pitton de Tournefort (1717), Pococke (1743–45), Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1763), and Andreossy (1818). See also Hammer’s own vision of medieval Byzantium: Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 1, 513ff.

131. For instance the Marquis de Villeneuve, ambassador to the Sublime Porte from 1728 to 1740. See Omont, Missions archéologiques, 1902, vol. 2, 663ff.

132. See J. Porter, Observations on the Religion, Law, Government, and Manners of the Turks, 1768.

133. Rycaut, History of the Turkish Empire, 1680; even more popular (and translated into six languages) was Rycaut, Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 1667.

134. Babinger, “Die türkischen Studien in Europa,” 1919, 128. On this fascinating figure see Theolin et al., The Torch of the Empire, 2002; E. A. Fraser, “Dressing Turks,” 2010; Findley, Enlightening Europe on Islam, forthcoming.

135. Angelomatis-Tsougarakis, Greek Revival, 1990, 1.

136. R. Morrison, Memoir of Principal Occurrences, 1819, 186–87.

137. Gehrke, “Die wissenschaftliche Entdeckung des Landes Hellás,” 1992–93, pt. 1, 29–30.

138. “J’ai toujours dérobé quelque chose aux monuments sur lesquels j’ai passé.” Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem, 1968, 147.

139. This perspective on Near Eastern travel literature is also dominant in Harmer, Observations on Divers Passages of Scripture, 1786–87.

140. E.g., Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem, 1968, 200.

141. Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem, 1968, 261.

142. Hennings, Gegenwärtiger Zustand der Besitzungen der Europäer in Ostindien, 1784–86, vol. 3, 415, laments the comparatively low intellectual level of travel literature on East and Southeast Asia and sees the reason for this in the prevalence of soldiers of fortune in that part of the world. On the characteristic “nabobs” see Marshall, East India Fortunes, 1976.

143. Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 1993, 529–33. Many of those texts are collected in L’Honoré Naber, Reisebeschreibungen von deutschen Beamten und Kriegsleuten, 1930–31. J. S. Semler included long excerpts from these accounts in volume 26 (1764) of the enlarged German edition of the Universal History: Baumgarten and Semler, Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie.

144. Knox, Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon, 1681.

145. An early representative is Lord Valentia, Voyages and Travels to India, 1809.

146. Abbé Prévost, Histoire générale des voyages, 1746–61, vol. 7 (1749), 261.

147. Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 1993, 386–87; Henze, Enzyklopädie der Entdecker und Erforscher der Erde, 1978–2004, vol. 2, 332–33; Zoli, “Le polemiche sulla Cina,” 1972, 409–16.

148. The caravan traffic was organized in a highly complex way and constituted a “great highway system of Asia”: Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean, 1985, 167–75 (quotation 169). An excellent analysis of the caravan trade was already offered in Heeren, Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 23–29.

149. A. Hamilton, New Acccount of the East Indies, 1930.

150. Benyowski, Memoirs and Travels, 1893; Adams, Travelers and Travel Liars, 1962, 81–83.

151. Hoare, Tactless Philosopher, 1975, 293–94, 363.

152. Ghirardini, Relation, 1700. He was a bit weak on geography, telling his readers that Java was an island within the Kingdom of Siam (30).

153. Tombe, Voyage aux Indes Orientales, 1810, vol. 1, 186ff. on Batavia.

154. Cochrane, Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey, 1824.

155. Drummond, Travels, 1754.

156. Bennassar and Bennassar, Les Chrétiens d’Allah, 1989.

157. S. Anderson, An English Consul in Turkey, 1989, 203–204.

158. Laurens, L’Expédition d’Égypte, 1989, sec. 199.

159. E.g., the Saint-Simonist Lambert as well as “Osman Effendi”: see Thompson, “Osman Effendi,” 1994.

160. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 456.

161. Kroell, “Douze Lettres de Jean Chardin,” 1982, 307; Hammer-Purgstall, Erinnerungen, 1940, 26.

162. Vanity Fair, 2001, ch. 51, 596.

163. See Pearson, Before Colonialism, 1988, S61.

164. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 73, 82, 93–94, 217.

165. Zaidi, “European Mercenaries in the Indian Armies,” 2011, 56–57.

166. See S. J. Shaw, Between Old and New, 1971, 10–11, 121; Tott, Memoirs of Baron de Tott, 1786. The first military adviser in the Ottoman Empire was Count Alexandre de Bonneval (Ahmed Pascha), who arrived in 1729. Rather late in our period, the British officer William Wittman, who was a member of the British military mission in support of the sultan against Bonaparte, observed Constantinople, the Levant, and Egypt with “cool” cultural detachment: Wittman, Travels in Turkey, 1803.

167. Rochemonteix, Joseph Amiot, 1915, 108, 251ff.

168. Broc, La géographie des philosophes, 1975, 285; H. Woolf, Transits of Venus, 1959.

169. The following section is indebted to Henning, “Die Reiseberichte über Sibirien von Herberstein bis Ides,” 1905; Wendland, “Das Russische Reich am Vorabend der Großen Nordischen Expedition,” 1990; Wendland, Peter Simon Pallas, 1992, 80–268; Robel, “Der Wandel des deutschen Sibirienbildes im 18. Jahrhundert,” 1980; Robel, “Bemerkungen zu deutschen Reisebeschreibungen,” 1992; Kollmann, The Russian Empire, 2017, 84–102; Black, G.- F. Müller and the Imperial Russian Academy, 1985, 47–77; Lincoln, Conquest of a Continent, 1994, 100–121; Hintzsche and Nickol, Die Große Nordische Expedition, 1996; Dahlmann, “Einleitung,” 1999; Dahlmann, “Die Weite Sibiriens und des Ozeans,” 2014; Cecere, “Russia and Its ‘Orient,’ ” 2007.

170. Strahlenberg, Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia, 1730.

171. This journey can be reconstructed in detail from the sources: Steller, Krašeninnikov, and Fischer, Reisetagebücher 1735 bis 1743, 2000; Steller, Briefe und Dokumente 1740, 2000.

172. Wendland, “Das Russische Reich am Vorabend der Großen Nordischen Expedition,” 1990, 367.

173. See Stagl, “Die Methodisierung des Reisens im 16. Jahrhundert,” 1989.

174. Broc, La géographie des philosophes, 1975, 38–39, 116–21.

175. On Niebuhr as a scientific traveler see Baack, Undying Curiosity, 2014.

176. Hoare, Tactless Philosopher, 1976, 12.

177. Laurens, L’Expédition d’Égypte, 1989, esp. chs. 9–11; Cole, Napoleon’s Egypt, 2007; on the scientific aspects of the expedition see Laissus, L’Égypte, 1998.

178. See Broc, “Les grandes missions scientifiques françaises au XIXe siècle,” 1981.

179. On the special role of British military officers in gathering intelligence and authoring accounts of Asian countries see Peers, “Colonial Knowledge and the Military in India,” 2005.

180. Markham, Rennell, 1895, 42; Edney, Mapping an Empire, 1997, 9–18, 134–35; Raj, Relocating Modern Science, 2006, 60–94.

181. Edney, Mapping an Empire, 1997, 17, emphasizes the discrepancy between ideal and real accuracy.

182. On Mackenzie see Dirks, “Colonial Histories and Native Informants,” 1993; Edney, Mapping an Empire, 1997, 152–55, 206–9; Barrow, Making History, Drawing Territory, 2003, 76–79. Of general importance is Jasanoff, Edge of Empire, 2005.

CHAPTER V. ENCOUNTERS

    1. Morier, Second Journey through Persia, 1818, 144.

    2. This embassy is of particular interest because the ambassador’s report later appeared in French translation: Galland, Relation de l’ambassade de Mehmet Effendi, 1757. New edition: Mehmed efendi, Le paradis des infidèles, 1981. For an earlier (1707–8) semiprivate visit to France by a young Maronite Christian from Aleppo see Diyāb, D’Alep à Paris, 2015.

    3. Van der Cruysse, Louis XIV et le Siam, 1991, 263–92, 373–410; Göçek, East Encounters West, 1987, 7ff.; Aksan, An Ottoman Statesman in War and Peace, 1995, 34ff.

    4. Rietbergen, “Witsen’s World,” 1985, 126–27.

    5. Spence, The Question of Hu, 1988.

    6. Sacy, Henri Bertin, 1970, 158–67.

    7. Blumenbach, Abbildungen naturhistorischer Gegenstände, 1810, unpaginated.

    8. Barrett, Singular Listlessness, 1989, 56, fn. 1.

    9. M. H. Fisher, Counterflows to Colonialism, 2004, 1–3.

  10. Gaastra, De geschiedenis van de VOC, 1991, 82 (table 8).

  11. Sörlin, Scientific Travel, 1989, 103, 121 (fn. 23).

  12. Henze, Enzyklopädie der Entdecker und Erforscher der Erde (1978–2004), vol. 1, 372.

  13. Lunt, Bokhara Burnes, 1969, 206. On Burnes’s achievement as an imperial geographer see Withers, “On Enlightenment’s Margins,” 13–17. See also Dalrymple, Return of a King, 2013, 267–73, which draws on Afghan as well as English sources to narrate Burnes’s death.

  14. His extant manuscripts were later published by his co-traveler, the botanist Johann Gottlieb Georgi: Falck, Beyträge zur Topographischen Kenntnis des russischen Reiches, 1785–86.

  15. Alder, Beyond Bokhara, 1985, 357.

  16. Van der Brug, Malaria en malaise, 1994, 55, 59–60.

  17. Marshall, East India Fortunes, 1976, 217–19.

  18. Kaempfer, Reisetagebücher, 144. On the climatic terrors of that region see also Arbuthnot, An Essay Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies, 1733, 79.

  19. J. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien, 1751–52, vol. 1, preface (“Vorrede,” unpaginated).

  20. S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, 1800, 93.

  21. J. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien, 1751–52, vol. 2, 445ff.; vol. 4, 6–7; Wurtzburg, Raffles, 1954, 678–82.

  22. Seetzen, Reisen durch Syrien, 1854–59, vol. 1, 278.

  23. A. v. Humboldt, Briefe aus Russland, 2009, 52. Journeys to the Inner Asian border zones of the Tsarist Empire always required a military escort. See also Pallas, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die südlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs, 1799–1801, vol. 1, 323.

  24. Posselt, Große Nordische Expedition, 1990, 192.

  25. Posselt, Große Nordische Expedition, 1990, 177–78.

  26. Unverzagt, Gesandtschaft, 1727, 45.

  27. Elphinstone, Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, 1839, vol, 1, 376, mentions the reasons for this.

  28. Schlözer, Vorlesungen über Land- und Seereisen, 1962, 40. Caravanserais existed even in Bengal. See Hodges, Travels in India, 1793, 32. There is a wealth of material on Persia in Kaempfer’s travel diaries: Kaempfer, Reisetagebücher, 1968, 45, 80–81, 86–87, 92, 111–12, 119. See also Still, Enlightenment Hospitality, 2011, 155–58.

  29. J. Johnson, Journey from India to England, 1818, 87, 100–101.

  30. One of the last travelers to praise the Chinese roads was C.L.J. de Guignes, Voyages à Peking, 1808, vol. 2, 214ff. (also vol. 1, 361). Around 1800 it took an official message from Peking fifteen days to reach the governor-general at Canton (Morse, Chronicles of the East India Company, 1926–29, vol. 3, 256). Compare at the same time the numerous complaints about the sorry state of roads in Asia Minor and Persia, for example Macdonald Kinneir, Geographical Memoir of the Persian Empire, 1813, 43.

  31. E.g., Magalhães, New History of China, 1688, 114ff.; Klaproth, Mémoires relatifs à l’Asie, 1826–28, vol. 3, 312–31.

  32. Steller, Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka, 1774, 133–39.

  33. Gemelli Careri, “Voyage round the World,” 1745, 220; Singh, Surat, 1977, 27, see also Qaisar, Indian Response, 1982, 37–43.

  34. Perrin, Voyage dans l’Indostan, 1807, vol. 1, 101.

  35. T. Shaw, Travels or Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary, 1808, vol. 1, xvii.

  36. With marvelous detail: C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 214–16. On the caravans to Mekka in a slightly earlier period see Faroqhi, Pilgrims and Sultans, 1994.

  37. Sestini, Voyage de Constantinopel à Bassora en 1781, 1797, v.

  38. See Sonnini, Voyage Voyage dans la haute et basse Égypte, 1799, vol. 1, 5.

  39. Lequin, Isaac Titsingh in China, 2005, 96: Titsingh’s diary entry of December 10, 1794. This happened in Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi. The entire diary is a register of travel horrors.

  40. Lequin, Isaac Titsingh in China, 2005, 119.

  41. Thus the malicious comment in Barrow, Autobiographical Memoir, 1847, 98. See also Duyvendak, “The Last Dutch Embassy to the Chinese Court (1794–95),” 1938, 40ff.; Boxer, “Isaac Titsingh’s Embassy,” 1939, 16.

  42. Blussé, Visible Cities, 2008, 87, 89.

  43. Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 23, 160–61.

  44. See Klaproth’s reminiscences: Klaproth, Briefe und Dokumente, 1999, 205.

  45. Caillié, Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo, 1830, vol. 2, 49.

  46. Æ. Anderson, Narrative of the British Embassy to China, 1795, 133.

  47. Schrödter, See- und Landreise nach Ostindien und Aegypten, 1800, vi–vii.

  48. Schrödter, See- und Landreise nach Ostindien und Aegypten, 1800, 11.

  49. See J. R. Forster, Bemerkungen, 1783, 350–51; J. R. Forster, Observations, 1996, 251–52.

  50. S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, 1800, sec. 174; Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, 103ff.

  51. D. Campbell, Journey over Land to India, 1796, pt. 3, 10.

  52. Eversmann, Reise von Orenburg nach Buchara, 1823, viii. Similarly J. G. Gmelin in Posselt, Große Nordische Expedition, 1990, 75; Timkovski, Voyage à Pekin, 1827, vol. 1, 438.

  53. This passage is based on Markham, “Introduction,” 1879, clix–clxv; Stifler, “The Language Students of the East India Company’s Canton Factory,” 56–57; Bishop, Myth of Shangri-La, 1989, 76–80.

  54. Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, 256.

  55. Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, 256.

  56. Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, 258.

  57. Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, 224.

  58. Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, 216. The entry is free of Manning’s habitual self-irony.

  59. Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, 266.

  60. Pomplun, Jesuit on the Roof of the World, 2010, 156–59; Petech, “Introduzione,” in Petech, I missionari italiani nel Tibet e nel Nepal (1954–56), vol. 5, xxii–xxiv, see also Desideri’s own account in the same volume: 193ff. George Bogle and Samuel Turner did not have time to pick up more than a smattering of Tibetan.

  61. C. Harbsmeier, “La connaissance du Chinois,” 1992, 307–8.

  62. Lemny, Les Cantemir, 2009, 29–160.

  63. Collani, P. Joachim Bouvet, S. J., 1985, 13; Cantemir, Historisch-geographische und politische Beschreibung der Moldau, 1771, 22; Leezenberg, “The Oriental Origins of Orientalism,” 2012, 247; Reith, Life of Dr. John Leyden, 1923, 379; Hoare, “Introduction,” 1982, 2.

  64. Hammer-Purgstall, Erinnerungen, 1840, 57.

  65. Franklin, Orientalist Jones, 2011.

  66. Rabault-Feuerhahn, Archives of Origins, 2013, 45–46.

  67. Fück, Die arabischen Studien in Europa, 1955, 127–29.

  68. Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reiches Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, 1815, vol. 2, 117–18.

  69. Philliou, Biography of an Empire, 2011, 112.

  70. W. Turner, Journal of a Tour in the Levant, 1820, vol. 1, 62–63 (fn.).

  71. E.g., Björnstahl, Briefe auf seinen ausländischen Reisen, 1777–83, vol. 4, 64–65.

  72. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 2, 4.

  73. The only senior representative of the VOC in Nagasaki who made his mark as a Japanologist was Isaac Titsingh, with several interruptions from 1779 to 1784 head of the Dutch factory on the artificial island of Dejima. See Titsingh, Private Correspondence of Isaac Titsingh, 1990–92, vol. 1, xv–xxi.

  74. Keene, Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1969, 78–79.

  75. Adami, Eine schwierige Nachbarschaft, 1990, 89.

  76. Demel, Als Fremde in China, 1992, 97–98.

  77. Nieuhof, An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, 1669, 117.

  78. Schefer, “Introduction,” 1890, cviii–cix.

  79. Cranmer-Byng, An Embassy to China, 1962, 319–20. The designated secretary of the embassy, Sir George L. Staunton, had personally traveled to France and Italy to recruit translators. See G. L. Staunton, An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China. 1797, vol. 1, 38–41.

  80. Dabringhaus, “Einleitung,” 1996, 51.

  81. Dabringhaus, “Einleitung,” 1996, 69–70.

  82. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 2, 1–2.

  83. Cohn, Colonialism and Its Form of Knowledge, 1996, 19, 33–36.

  84. Cohn, Colonialism and Its Form of Knowledge, 1996, 16–56.

  85. Osbeck, Voyage to China and the East Indies, 1771, vol. 1, 274–75.

  86. Finlayson, Mission to Siam and Hué, 1826, 146.

  87. Symes, Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, 1800, 295.

  88. C. A. Bayly, Empire and Information, 1996, 63.

  89. C. A. Bayly, Empire and Information, 1996, 71.

  90. Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, 1886, 581.

  91. C. A. Bayly, Empire and Information, 1996, 74. There are parallels to the rise of literate administrators in Iran in the early seventeenth century.

  92. C. A. Bayly, Empire and Information, 1996, 75.

  93. C. A. Bayly, Empire and Information, 1996, 77–78.

  94. See above, chapter 4, section 2: “A Weeping Mandarin.”

  95. Barrow, Voyage to Cochin China, 1806, 288.

  96. Barrow, Voyage to Cochin China, 1806, 327.

  97. Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China, 1828, 73–74, 81. At almost the same time the British diplomat James Justinian Morier witnessed in Iran the dinner à l’anglais alluded to in the epigraph to the present chapter (Second Journey through Persia, 1818, 144).

  98. W. Jones, Preface to “A Grammar of the Persian Language” [1771], in Jones, Works, 1807, vol. 5, 179.

  99. W. Jones, “Fifth Anniversary Discourse” [1788], in Jones, Works, 1807, vol. 3, 71. In a similar vein another great authority: Anquetil-Duperron, “Recherches historiques et géographiques sur l’Inde,” 1787, vol. 2, xiii–xiv.

100. D’Ohsson, Tableau générale de l’Empire Othoman, 1788–1824, vol. 1, ii–v.

101. Tott, Mémoires, 1786, vol. 1, xvii–xviii (meant as criticism of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu).

102. Hachicho, “English Travel Books about the Arab Near East,” 1964, 104.

103. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 274–75.

104. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 362.

105. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, x–xi; on von Haven’s academic credentials and his studies in Rome see Baack, Undying Curiosity, 2014, 45–46.

106. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 414–15; see also C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, xv.

107. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 232.

108. Burnes, Travels into Bokhara, 1834, vol. 1, 281.

109. Greenblatt, Marvellous Possessions, 1991, 99.

110. Charles-Roux, Les échelles de Syrie et de Palestine, 1928, 16; Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 2, 2.

111. R. K. Porter, Travels in Georgia, 1821–22, vol. 1, 240.

112. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 322, 378, 410.

113. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 2, 168.

114. J. White, Voyage to Cochin China, 1824, 227.

115. E. Morrison, Memoirs of the Life and Labours of Robert Morrison, 1839, vol. 1, 188.

116. Cohn, Colonialism and Its Form of Knowledge, 1996, 111.

117. Cohn, Colonialism and Its Form of Knowledge, 1996, 112; Dalrymple, White Mughals, 2002, 50.

118. “Entdeckerfreundschaften”: See M. Harbsmeier, “Kadu und Maheine,” 1991.

119. Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, 83–89, 95, 110, 135–45; Lamb, Bhutan and Tibet, 2002, 149–55.

120. Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, 92, 104; S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, 1800, 235. See also a universal history of the game of chess: Wahl, Geist und die Geschichte des Schach-Spiels, 1798.

121. Colley, Britons, 1992, 127ff.

122. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 119.

123. Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, 1790, vol.1, lxxi–lxxii.

124. Percy, Hau Kiou Choaan, or the Pleasing History, 1761, vol. 1, xviii–xix.

125. Based on the author’s personal experience as a medical doctor on Lord Amherst’s mission to China in 1816: Abel, Narrative of a Journey into the Interior of China, 1819, 232–33; see also Grosier, De la Chine, 1818–20, vol. 1, v–vi.

126. Nieuhof, An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces to the Grand Tartar Cham, 1669, 25.

127. This is what happened in 1716 to a Swedish diplomat in Russian employment who served in China: Lange, “Journal von Lorenz Langens Reise nach China,” in F. C. Weber, Das veränderte Rußland, 1738–39, pt. 1 [first ed. 1721], 83.

128. This must have occurred regularly; see, for example, the Ottoman embassy to France in 1720/21: Göçek, East Encounters West, 1987, 41ff.

129. Elphinstone, Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, 1839, vol. 1, 37. Niebuhr regarded traveling as an opportunity for mutual learning: Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 272–73.

130. Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, 77.

131. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 91–92.

132. For example Otter, Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, 1748, vol. 1, 100; Kaempfer, Reisetagebücher, 1968, 62–63.

133. Posselt, Große Nordische Expedition, 1990, 47–49.

134. Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, 267–68, 280–81, 286–87.

135. Alder, Beyond Bokara, 1985, passim (see entry “medicine” in the index).

136. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 262, 300–301, 407; vol. 2, 308–9.

137. Chamisso, “Reise um die Welt,” 1883, vol. 3, 250.

138. See Schäbler, “Ulrich Jasper Seetzen,” 1995, 124.

CHAPTER VI. EYEWITNESSES–EARWITNESSES: EXPERIENCING ASIA

    1. J. R. Forster, Observations, 1996, 211; German original: J. R. Forster, Bemerkungen, 1783, 290.

    2. Dédéyan, Montesquieu ou l’alibi persan, 1988, 14–15.

    3. The standard edition is now Goethe, “West-östlicher Divan 1819: Besserem Verständnis,” 2010. This prose part of the “Divan” has traditionally been known as Noten und Abhandlungen zum besseren Verständnis des West-östlichen Diwan. On Goethe’s extensive use of travel literature in the preparation of this work see Guthke, Goethes Weimar, 2001, 89–106.

    4. Layton, Russian Literature and Empire, 1994, 29–30, 34.

    5. Denckwürdige Beschreibung des Königreichs China, 1679, 6.

    6. See Robinet, Vue philosophique de la gradation naturelle des formes de l’être, 1768, 160–61.

    7. Adams, Travelers and Travel Liars, 1980, 19–43. The problem is discussed with utter seriousness in 1749 by Buffon, “Histoire naturelle de l’homme,” 2009, 554–57, and three decades later by the German geographer and zoologist E.A.W. von Zimmermann: Geographische Geschichte des Menschen, 1778–83, vol. 2, 60ff.

    8. Zimmermann, Geographische Geschichte des Menschen, 1778–83, vol. 2, 138–64; a similar consideration in Barrow, Account of Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa, 1801, 313–19.

    9. S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, 1800, 157.

  10. Hammer-Purgstall, Constantinopolis, 1822, vol. 1, xxiii.

  11. From a letter of Sir James Porter, read at a meeting of the Royal Society in London on April 10, 1755. Quoted in Boogert, Aleppo Observed, 2010, 11.

  12. For example, in Poivre, Un manuscrit inédit de Pierre Poivre, 1968, 19–20.

  13. “… des vues plus relevées, des considerations plus puissantes.” Sonnini, Voyage dans la haute et basse Égypte, 1799, vol. 1, 3. The author was a naturalist and former collaborator of Buffon. He traveled in Egypt from 1777 to 1780.

  14. Diez, Denkwürdigkeiten, 1811–15, vol. 1, xvii.

  15. Köhler, Sammlung neuer Reisebeschreibungen, 1767–69, vol. 1, pt. 2, 571; Hausleutner, Geschichte der Araber in Sicilien, 1791–92, vol. 1, xv.

  16. Parennin, in Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 19, 277–78.

  17. Savary, Lettres sur l’Égypte, 1785–86, vol. 1, i–iii.

  18. “Le vrai Voyageur, c’est-à-dire celui qui, aimant tous les hommes comme ces frères, inaccessible aux plaisirs & aux besoins, au-dessus de la grandeur & de la bassesse, de l’estime & de blame, de la richesse et de la pauvreté, parcourt le monde, sans attache qui le fixe à aucun lieu, spectateur du bien & du mal, sans égard à celui qui le fait, aux motifs propre à telle Nation: ce voyageur, s’il est instruit, s’il a un jugement sain, saisit sur-le-champ le ridicule, le faux d’un procédé, d’un usage, d’une opinion.” Anquetil-Duperron, Dignité du commerce, 1789, 4.

  19. Robert Hooke, “Preface,” in Knox, Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon, 1681, unpaginated.

  20. Anonymous review in The British Critic (December 1817, 591) of Ellis, Journal, 1818. A similar remark in Diez, Denkwürdigkeiten, 1811–15, vol. 1, xiii: “How many times has an entire nation been condemned because children mocked the traveler or adults did not appreciate his supposedly elevated rank?”

  21. For example, see Businello, Historische Nachrichten, 1778, 2.

  22. Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 1, xii–xiii.

  23. Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 1, 3.

  24. S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, 1800, 65, 302, 343.

  25. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 31.

  26. For example, Semedo, History of that Great and Renowned Monarchy of China, 1655, 25; and as a summary Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 1, ii. There is an echo in such remarks of the Confucian literatis’ contempt for commerce.

  27. See the preface to Travels of the Jesuits, 1743, viii–ix.

  28. Pauw, Recherches philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois, 1773, vol. 1, v. On this influential author see Duchet, Le partage des savoirs, 1985, 82–104, and on his controversial views concerning the alleged inferiority of America: Gerbi, Dispute of the New World, 1973, 52–79.

  29. A powerful refutation was published by Father Amiot in Mémoires concernant l’histoire … des Chinois, 1776–1814, vol. 2 (1777), 365–574, with additions in vol. 6 (1780), 275ff.; part of the same response was Grosier, “Discours préliminaire,” 1777, xxxvi et seq.

  30. Pauw, Recherches philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois, 1773, vol. 1, 84; Amiot in Mémoires concernant l’histoire … des Chinois, 1776–1814, vol. 6 (1780), 277–307; G. L. Staunton, Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, 1797, vol. 2, 615ff.; Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 575; Cranmer-Byng, Embassy to China, 1962, 246; Pinkerton, Modern Geography, 1807, vol. 2, 99 (in a sense the final word on de Pauw).

  31. Sonnerat, Voyages aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine, 1782, vol. 2, 2–4.

  32. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 30–31, quotation: 3.

  33. Leguat, Voyages et aventures, 1708, vol. 1, xviii; on this see Adams, Travelers and Travel Liars, 1962, 100ff.

  34. Dubois, Description of the Character, Manners and Customs of the People of India, 1817, xv.

  35. Dubois, Description of the Character, Manners and Customs of the People of India, 1817, v.

  36. Max Müller, “Prefatory Note,” in Dubois, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, 1906, vii.

  37. Cœurdoux and Desvaulx, Mœurs and coutumes des Indiens, 1987. This extremely complex story has been painstakingly unraveled by Sylvia Murr in L’indologie du Père Cœurdoux, 1987.

  38. Quoted in Schäbler, “Ulrich Jasper Seetzen,” 1995, 122–23.

  39. Schäbler, “Ulrich Jasper Seetzen,” 1995, 122.

  40. This was reported by one of their number, the Polish Count Jan Potocki: Voyages, 1980, vol. 2, 45.

  41. Braam Houckgeest, Authentic Account of the Embassy of the Dutch East India Company, 1798, vol. 1, xix.

  42. Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, 1790, vol. 1, lxvi.

  43. Early travelers with a “realist” outlook were Herberstein (1549), Busbecq (1589), Sandys (1615), Blount (1636), and Olearius (1647). They may be contrasted with the ever-gullible diplomat Sir Thomas Herbert (1634), who was always on the alert for the sensational and spectacular.

  44. Hammer-Purgstall, Constantinopolis, 1822, vol.1, xi–xii.

  45. See Roger, Les sciences de la vie, 1963, 163–64.

  46. Milburn, Oriental Commerce, 1813—a work of incredible detail.

  47. “J’allais chercher des images, voilà tout.” Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem, 1968, 41.

  48. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, xx–xxi; Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 25; J. B. Fraser, Journal of a Tour through Part of the Snowy Range of the Himala Mountains, 1820, preface.

  49. Gemelli Careri, “Voyage round the World,” 1745, 205.

  50. Adams, Travelers and Travel Liars, 1980, 210–22.

  51. Shelvocke, Voyage round the World, 1726, 459–60.

  52. Ellis, Journal, 1818, vol. 1, 334.

  53. Thévenot, Travels, 1687, vol. 1, 59; Gervaise, Natural and Political History of Siam, 1928, 38; Merklein, Reise nach Java, 1930, 14.

  54. Hodges, Travels in India, 1793, iv.

  55. Castilhon, Considérations, 1769, 218–19.

  56. Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 23, 321ff. (quotation from a report by Father Joseph Amiot). A similar experience of chaos is mentioned in Heissig, Mongoleireise zur späten Goethezeit, 1971, 101.

  57. J. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien, 1751–52, vol. 1, 196.

  58. See Abbattista, James Mill e il problema indiano, 1979, 93–94; Majeed, Ungoverned Imaginings, 1992), 140ff.

  59. Mill, History of British India, 1817, vol. 1, 7.

  60. Mill, History of British India, 1817, vol. 1, 9.

  61. Elphinstone, Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, 1839.

  62. See also the discussion in Despoix, Le monde mesuré, 2005, ch. 2.

  63. Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, 1790, vol. 1, lxv–lxvi; Hammer-Purgstall, Constantinopolis, 1822, vol. 1, xxiv; Osbeck, Voyage to China and the East Indies, 1771, xviii; C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, xvii.

  64. A. Smith, Journal of His Expedition into the Interior of South Africa, 1975, ix.

  65. Of fundamental importance: Stagl, History of Curiosity, 1995.

  66. See Dharampal-Frick, Indien im Spiegel deutscher Quellen der Frühen Neuzeit, 1994, 72–75.

  67. Fried, “Auf der Suche nach der Wirklichkeit,” 1986, 316, also 302–4. On the empirical element in medieval reports on Inner Asia and China see Reichert, Begegnungen mit China, 1992, 88–111.

  68. Caron and Schouten, True Description of the Mighty Kingdom of Japan, 1935. Lucas’s questionnaire is in Kapitza, Japan in Europa, 1990, vol. 1, 537–38. For Caron’s response see Kapitza, 538–50.

  69. For example, S. Anderson, An English Consul in Turkey, 1989, 210–11; Shapin, Social History of Truth, 1994, 245ff.

  70. Leibniz, Briefwechsel mit den Jesuiten in China, 2006, 11–15.

  71. Turgot, “Questions sur la Chine adressées à deux Chinois” (1766), in Turgot, Œuvres, 1913–23, vol. 2 (1914), 523–33. On a different Chinese informant, Arcadius Hoang, see Elisseeff-Poisle, Nicolas Fréret, 1978, 39ff., 166ff.

  72. Michaelis, Fragen an eine Gesellschaft gelehrter Männer, 1762, 386.

  73. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, xvii.

  74. Michaelis, Fragen an eine Gesellschaft gelehrter Männer, 1762, “Instruction,” unpaginated.

  75. Wendland, Peter Simon Pallas, 1992, vol. 1, 89–93.

  76. Buchanan, Journey from Madras, 1807, vol. 1, viii–xiii.

  77. “Classe essentiellement questionneuse”: Volney, “Questions de statistique à l’usage des voyageurs,” in Volney, Œuvres, 1989–98, vol. 1, 663.

  78. A. v. Humboldt, Relation historique, 1814–25, vol. 2, 158.

  79. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 147.

  80. “Pour une telle étude, il faut communiquer avec les hommes que l’on veut approfondir, il faut épouser leurs situations afin de sentir quels agens influent sur eux, quelles affections en résultent; il fait vivre dans leur pays, apprendre leur langue, pratiquer leurs coutumes.” Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 399.

  81. “Le cœur est partial, l’habitude puissante, les faits insidieux, et l’illusion facile. L’observateur doit donc être circonspect sans devenir pusillanime; et le lecteur obligé de voir par des yeux intermédiaires, doit surveiller à la fois la raison de son guide et sa propre raison.” Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 399.

  82. Broc, “Les grandes missions,” 1981.

  83. Stagl, History of Curiosity, 1995, 279.

  84. Volney, Œuvres, 1989, vol. 1, 667.

  85. Volney, Œuvres, 1989, vol. 1, 669–79.

  86. Volney, Œuvres, 1989, vol. 1, 664–65. A different instruction for scientific observation and reporting by travelers was developed in 1800 by a fellow-idéologue, Joseph-Marie Degérando. His emphasis is on ethnological and anthropological aspects whereas Volney is more interested in politics and economics. See Degérando’s document in Copans and Jamin, Aux origines de l’anthropologie française, 1978, 129–69; see also Chappey, La Société des observateurs de l’homme, 2002, 247–57.

  87. On his biography: Marsden, Brief Memoir, 1838; for an interpretation, see Gascoigne, Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment, 1994, 164–71.

  88. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, vi (preface of 1783).

  89. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, 399–400.

  90. On trust and the acceptance of scientific propositions see Shapin, Social History of Truth, 1994, 22–36.

  91. Burnes, Travels into Bokhara, 1834, vol. 1, 277; Barrow, Voyage to Cochin China, 1806, 296; J. White, Voyage to Cochin China, 1824, 226; Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 79; Morier, Second Journey through Persia, 1818, 229–30.

  92. A. Hamilton, New Account of the East Indies, 1930, vol. 1, 141.

  93. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 121–22; Morier, Journey through Persia, 1812, 116.

  94. Percival, Account of the Island of Ceylon, 1805, 266.

  95. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 5, 287.

  96. Cantemir, History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire, 1734–35, vol. 2, 379. See also Businello, Historische Nachrichten, 1778, 65.

  97. Hammer-Purgstall, Des Osmanischen Reiches Staatsverfassung, 1815, vol. 2, 57.

  98. Cantemir, History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire, 1734–35, vol. 2, 379.

  99. Hammer-Purgstall, Des Osmanischen Reiches Staatsverfassung, 1815, vol. 1, 218–19. On mute servants in the harem see Grosrichard, The Sultan’s Court, 1998, 139–41.

100. Vogel, Zehn-Jährige, Jetzo auffs neue revidirt und vermehrte Ost-Indianische Reise-Beschreibung, 1716.

101. A. Hamilton, New Account of the East Indies, 1930, vol. 1, 9.

102. Ellis, Journal, 1818, vol. 1, 90 (fn.); Mason, Costume of China, 1800.

103. T. Shaw, Travels or Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary, 1808, xxv–xxvi.

104. See Du Mans, Estat de la Perse, 1890; Schefer, “Introduction,” 1890, cviii–cvix.

105. Angelomathis-Tsougarakis, Greek Revival, 1990, 14ff.

106. Tavernier, Nouvelle relation de l’interieur du Serraill du Grand Seigneur, 1675, 541; Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 267; Peirce, Imperial Harem, 1993, 115–16.

107. Peirce, Imperial Harem, 1993, 114.

108. Georgi, Bemerkungen einer Reise im Rußischen Reich, 1775; Kapitza, Japan in Europa, 1990, vol. 2, 628–32; Thunberg, Voyages de C. P. Thunberg au Japon, 1796, vol. 2, 405ff.

109. Stavorinus, Reise nach dem Vorgebirge der Guten Hoffnung, 1796, 83. In Bombay, Niebuhr experienced the same problem but, characteristically, faulted himself for being unable to speak the local language: Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 2, 22.

110. Dallaway, Constantinopel Ancient and Modern, 1797, 12.

111. S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, 1800, 45.

112. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 226, also 61; also C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, 404–5.

113. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 2, 219.

114. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, 209.

115. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, xi.

116. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, xviii.

117. J. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien, 1751–52, vol. 2, preface (“Vorrede,” unpaginated).

118. Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China, 1967, 263.

119. Poivre, “Voyage de Pierre Poivre en Cochinchine,” 1885, 462.

120. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 937, fn. 11.

121. Percival, Account of the Island of Ceylon, 1805, 3.

122. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 311.

123. J. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien, 1751–52, vol. 2, preface (“Vorrede,” unpaginated).

124. W. Jones, “Tenth Anniversary Discourse” [1792], in Jones, Works, 1807, vol. 3, 217. See also G. T. Staunton, Ta Tsing Leu Lee, 1810, xii.

125. Foss, “A Western Interpretation of China,” 1988, 230–31; Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise, 2001, 71.

126. See Fuchs, Jesuiten-Atlas der Kanghsi-Zeit, 1943, vol. 2 (Atlas, including the edition of 1721), 222–23.

127. D’Anville, Nouvel Atlas de la Chine, 1737.

128. Harley and Woodward, History of Cartography, 1994, 185.

129. Rennell, Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan, 1793, ii, viii.

130. Edney, Mapping an Empire, 1997, 308–9, 328, 311; for an account covering the entire nineteenth century see Waller, The Pundits, 2004.

131. Fischer, Sibirische Geschichte, 1768, vol. 1, 46.

132. Gaubil, Traité de la chronologie chinoise, 1814, 282. A general assessment of Chinese historiography by a learned ex-Jesuit: Grosier, “Discours préliminaire,” 1777, xxix et seq.

133. J. de Guignes, Histoire générale des huns, 1756–58, vol. 1, pt. 1, preface; see also Fourmont, Reflexions critiques sur les histoires des anciens peuples, 1735, vol. 2, 406.

134. Ockley, History of the Saracens, 1757, vol. 1, xvii; similarly: Margat de Tilly, Histoire de Tamerlan, 1739, xv–xvi.

135. Ockley, History of the Saracens, 1757, vol. 2, vii.

136. Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,” 1764. See also Bevilacqua, “The Qur’an Translations of Maracci and Sale,” 2013.

137. Titsingh, Private Correspondence, 1990–92, vol. 1, xviii.

138. W. Jones, “On the Philosophy of the Asiaticks” [1794], in Jones, Works, 1807, vol. 3, 235.

139. Gladwin, Ayeen Akbery, 1800, vol. 1, x. On Gladwin see Grewal, Muslim Rule in India, 1970, 25–27.

140. Goethe, “West-östlicher Divan 1819: Besserem Verständnis,” 2010, 270.

141. Kleuker, Anhang zum Zend-Avesta, 1781–83, vol. 1, pt. 1, 168.

142. Mailla, Histoire générale de la Chine, 1777–80. The most competent and penetrating critic was Father Antoine Gaubil. See his Correspondance, 1970, 262, 511, 674. Father Dominique Parennin, apprently a better Sinologist than de Mailla, made his own translations of parts of the Tongjian gangmu. It remained unpublished.

143. See Pinot, La Chine et la formation de l’esprit philosophique en France, 1932, 250–52; Guy, French Image of China, 1963, 393–94; Mackerras, Western Images of China, 1989, 95–96.

144. Encyclopedia of Islam. New ed., vol. 2, 1983, 923. On Dow see Grewal, Muslim Rule in India, 1970, 6–22; Van Aalst, British View of India, 1970, 312–13. Dow had neglected any critical examination of the Ferishta manuscript at his disposal. His carelessness became apparent in 1829 when John Briggs published a new translation based on the philological standards of the day: History of the Rise of Mahomedan Power in India.

145. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 529, fn. 13.

146. Dow, History of Hindostan, 1812, vol. 1, viii.

147. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 320, 343–44.

148. Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 1993, 1030.

149. The following passage follows Windisch, Geschichte der Sanskrit-Philologie, 1917–20, vol. 1, 22ff., Schwab, Oriental Renaissance, 1984, 51–80; Kejariwal, Asiatic Society, 1988; Rocher, Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millenium, 1993, 234–40; Teltscher, India Inscribed, 1995, 92–228; Franklin, Orientalist Jones, 2011.

150. Rocher and Rocher, The Making of Western Indology, 2012, 67–82.

151. See Grotsch, “Das Sanskrit und die Ursprache,” 1989, 88ff.

152. Windisch, Geschichte der Sanskrit-Philologie, 1917–20, vol. 1, 55.

153. “… de tirer de cete nation tout ce qui peut servir à la perfection de nos Sciences et de nos Arts.…” Leibniz, Briefwechsel mit den Jesuiten in China, 2006, 228 (letter no. 32 of September 19, 1699).

154. Bouvet, Eine wissenschaftliche Akademie für China, 1989, 27–31.

155. Leibniz, Briefwechsel mit den Jesuiten in China, 2006, 396 (letter no. 49 of May 18, 1703). Leibniz was right: the reign of the Kangxi emperor was the high point of intercultural openness and exchange. See Jami, The Emperor’s New Mathematics, 2012.

156. See also Leibniz, Preface to Leibniz’ Novissima Sinica, 1957, 68–71; the best edition of the Latin original is Leibniz, Briefe über China, 2017, 4–9.

157. Gascoigne, Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment, 1994, 179–80, 182.

158. Muntschik, “Die floristische Erforschung Japans um 1700,” 1983, 13.

159. Muntschik, “Die floristische Erforschung Japans um 1700,” 1983, 20, 22.

160. Fournier, “Enterprise in Botany,” 1987, 128–29; Heniger, Hendrik Adriaan van Reede tot Drakenstein, 1986, esp. 41–45, 59–64; Grove, Green Imperialism, 1995, 85–90; Grove, “Indigenous Knowledge,” 1996.

CHAPTER VII. REPORTING, EDITING, READING: FROM LIVED EXPERIENCE TO PRINTED TEXT

    1. S. Johnson, Selected Poetry and Prose, 1977, 270.

    2. Drijvers, de Hond, and Sancisi-Weerdenburg, “Ik hadde de nieusgierigheid,” 1997; Schmidt, Inventing Exoticism, 2015, 43–45. On earlier visual representations of Turks and the Ottoman Empire see Harper, The Turk and Islam, 2011.

    3. Peyrefitte, Images de l’Empire immobile, 1990; Tillotson, Artificial Empire, 2000; Bernard Smith, European Vision and the South Pacific, 1985, 56–82; Bernard Smith, Imagining the Pacific, 1992, 111–35. A classic on the illustrated travel account is Stafford, Voyage into Substance, 1984; see also Jacobs, Painted Voyage, 1995, 18–79 on Asia.

    4. See Archer, Early Views of India, 1980; Shellim, Oil Paintings of India and the East, 1979.

    5. See Bernard Smith, European Vision and the South Pacific, 1985; Bernard Smith, Imagining the Pacific, 1992.

    6. On the emergence of the “philosophical traveler” in humanism and Renaissance see the excellent article by Rubiés, “Travel Writing and Humanistic Culture: A Blunted Impact?,” 2007. Rubiés’s analysis confirms for an earlier age my own interpretation of the eighteenth century as developed in 1998 in the German original of the present book. This is not the place to discuss the extensive literature on travel writing that has appeared since 1998. Starting points are Hulme and Youngs, Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, 2000; Rubiés, Travelers and Cosmographers, 2007; Elsner and Rubiés, Voyages and Visions, 1999. The comparison of travel writing in European and Chinese contexts has been pioneered in Rubiés and Ollé, “The Comparative History of a Genre,” 2016 (with a good introduction to travel writing in early modern Europe: 5–20).

    7. A brief vignette of such a voracious reader (the Göttingen polymath Christoph Meiners) is provided in Carhart, Science of Culture in Enlightenment Germany, 2007, 228–29.

    8. Beaglehole, Life of Captain James Cook, 1974, 290, 459–71; Robel, “Bemerkungen zu deutschen Reisebeschreibungen,” 1992, 25 (on the Great Nordic Expedition); Potocki, Voyages, vol. 2, 52 (on the Russian mission to China in 1805).

    9. Elphinstone, Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, 1839, vol. 1, xxiv–xxxv.

  10. See Abbott, John Hawkesworth, 1982, 137ff.

  11. Gelder, Het Oost-Indisch avontuur, 1997, 260.

  12. Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire, 1971, 56.

  13. Castoldi, Il fascino del colibrí, 1972, 77, 79. A good example is Capper, Observations on the Passage to India, 1783.

  14. Duchet, Le partage du savoir, 1985, 19.

  15. Kaempfer, Phoenix Persicus, 1987, 42.

  16. T. Shaw, Travels or Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary, 1808, ix–x.

  17. Quoted in Osbeck, Voyage to China and the East Indies, 1771, vol, 2, 127–28.

  18. Batten, Pleasurable Instruction, 1978, 79; Hentschel, “Die Reiseliteratur am Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts,” 1991, 54–63.

  19. Sonnerat, Voyages aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine, 1782, vol. 2, xv.

  20. T. Shaw, Travels or Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary, 1808, xi.

  21. Chardin, Le couronnement de Soleimaan, 1671; Kroell, “Douze Lettres de Jean Chardin,” 1982, 299.

  22. Preface to Baumgarten, Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie, 1744–67, vol. 26 (1764), 4; also vol. 29 (1765), 2; Matthias Christian Sprengel’s introduction to Barrow, Reisen durch die inneren Gegenden des südlichen Africa, 1801, xvii.

  23. General reflections on the value of detail in travel accounts: C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 312–13.

  24. Elphinstone, Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, 1839, vol. 1, ix.

  25. Typical examples are Forrest, Voyage from Calcutta to the Mergui Archipelago, 1792, or Lucas, Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas au Levant, 1720.

  26. S. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Rußland zur Untersuchung der drey Natur-Reiche, 1770–84, vol. 1, 48. His uncle J. G. Gmelin has kept his own diary in a less methodical way, regarding it as a “hodgepodge of countless particulars”: Reise durch Sibirien von dem Jahr 1733 bis 1743, 1751–52, prefaces (unpaginated) to vols. 1 and 2.

  27. “… der uns das Fremdeste, Seltsamste, mit seiner Lokalität, mit aller Nachbarschaft, jedesmal in dem eigensten Elemente zu schildern und darzustellen weiß.” J. W. v. Goethe, “Die Wahlverwandtschaften,” in Goethe, Sämtliche Werke. Münchner Ausgabe. Ed. Karl Richter, vol. 9, Munich, 1987, 457; Goethe’s Collected Works. Ed. Victor Lange, Eric A. Blackall, and Cyrus Hamlin, vol. 11, New York, 1988, 212.

  28. T. Shaw, Travels or Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary, 1808, xi.

  29. Grundy, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 1999, 134–66.

  30. Kindersley, Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, 1777.

  31. Abel-Rémusat, Nouvelles mélanges asiatiques, 1829, vol. 1, 284. For a fitting example of a perpetuated error see Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jerusalem, 1968, 93ff.

  32. Edinburgh Review, July 1804, 314 (anonymous).

  33. On Lahontan see Pagden, European Encounters with the New World, 1993, 120–25; see also the general reflections in Gearhart, Open Boundary of History and Fiction, 1984; Constantine, “The Question of Authenticity,” 1988.

  34. Liebersohn, The Travelers’s World, 2006, 8.

  35. Desideri, Account of Tibet, 1932, 302–6.

  36. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 34.

  37. Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jerusalem, 1968, 27, 45, 105, 111, 131, 271–72.

  38. See Rehbinder, Nachrichten und Bemerkungen über den algierischen Staat, 1798–1800, vol. 1, 3–5, on his failed attempts to disprove and refute Shaw’s observations. James Bruce, too, and even travelers from the nineteenth century confirmed Shaw’s accuracy and reliability during his travels through the Near East from 1720 to 1733.

  39. Walckenaer, Vies de plusieurs personnages célèbres, 1830, vol. 2, 74, makes the point that Bernier’s reputation kept growing continuously after his death.

  40. Wilson’s detailed introduction to Mill, History of British India, 1858, vol. 1, vii–xxxvi.

  41. Grosier, De la Chine, 1818–20, vol. 1, xiv.

  42. Thompson, Wonderful Things, 2015, 78.

  43. Markham, “Introduction,” in Bogle and Manning, Narratives, 1879, clxii.

  44. Grewal, Muslim Rule in India, 1970, 114.

  45. Those who debriefed him included famous scholars like Athanasius Kircher and Lorenzo Magalotti: see Zoli, La Cina e la cultura italiana, 1973, 105–11.

  46. Moorcroft and Trebeck, Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan, 1841; Alder, Beyond Bokhara, 1985.

  47. Examples are Roque, Voyage de l’Arabie Heureuse, 1715 (the standard account of Yemen before Niebuhr’s work); Turpin, Histoire civile et naturelle du royaume de Siam, 1771; Richard, Histoire naturelle, civile et politique du Tonquin, 1778; Renouard de Sainte-Croix, Voyage commercial et politique aux Indes Orientales, 1810, who used unpublished papers written by missionaries.

  48. Travels of the Jesuits, 1743, vi. However, the anonymous editor then proceeds to praise the acuity of the Jesuits’ observations.

  49. See Richards, Mughal Empire, 1993, 306.

  50. Catrou, History of the Mogul Dynasty, 1826.

  51. Manucci, Storia do Mogor (1906–8); Manuzzi’s life and the fate of his work have been carefully reconstructed in Subrahmanyam, Three Ways to Be Alien, 2011, 136–72.

  52. On the dissemination and celebrity of this work see Lemny, Les Cantemir, 2009, 305–19.

  53. On the early collections see Broc, La géographie de la Renaissance, 1980, 37–42, on the eighteenth century Boerner, “Die großen Reisesammlungen des 18. Jahrhunderts,” 1982.

  54. Rietbergen, “Witsen’s World,” 1985, esp. 124–15. A kind of continuation of Witsen’s work was a French collection of reports on Northern Asia: Bernard, Recueil de voyages du Nord, 1732–34.

  55. Valentyn, Oud en nieuw Oost-Indien, 1724–26.

  56. Fisch, Hollands Ruhm in Asien, 1986, 17–19.

  57. Fisch, Hollands Ruhm in Asien, 1986, 22. On Valentyn see also Beekman, Troubled Pleasures, 1996, 119–44.

  58. Crone and Skelton, “English Collections of Voyages and Travels,” 1946, 84–85.

  59. Harris and Campbell, Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, 1744–48; Modern Part of an Universal History, 1759–66. See Abbattista, Commercio, colonie e impero, 1990, 69, 267ff.

  60. Astley and Green, A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels, 1745–47. John Green was the editor, Thomas Astley the publisher and at the same time owner of the library from which the texts were drawn.

  61. Astley and Green, A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels, 1745–47, vol. 1, vii (preface).

  62. Astley and Green, A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels, 1745–47, vol. 1, vii (preface).

  63. Crone and Skelton, “English Collections of Voyages and Travels,” 1946, 101.

  64. See Astley and Green, A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels, 1745–47, vol. 4, 3.

  65. See Prévost, Histoire générale des voyages, 1746–59. A detailed table of contents is in Prévost, Œuvres, vol. 8, 1986, 400–401. An excellent discussion is Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire, 1971, 81–95.

  66. Prévost, “Avertissement” of vol. 11, in Œuvres, vol. 8, 1986, 436.

  67. Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire, 1971, 91.

  68. “Un système complet d’ histoire et de géographie moderne, qui représentera l’état actuel de toutes les nations.” Quoted in Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire, 1971, 84.

  69. Examples are Newberry, World Displayed, 1759–61; Derrick, Collection of Travels thro’ Various Parts of the World, 1762.

  70. Schwabe, Allgemeine Historie aller merckwürdigen Reisen, 1747–74, vol. 1, preface (“Vorrede,” unpaginated).

  71. “Das Werck an sich selbsten ist so beschaffen, daß je weiter man darinnen lieset, je lieblicher und angenehmer es wird: Und obschon gleich Anfangs manche Umstände, wegen der angeführten unbekannten Länder und Oerter, sehr dunckel vorkommen, so werden sie in den nachfolgenden Relationen dergestalt erläutert, daß gar kein Zweiffel mehr übrig bleibet. So gehet einem das Licht immer mehr auf, und so vermehret sich alle Augenblicke die Lust, diese Historie weiter einzusehen.” Schwabe, Allgemeine Historie aller merckwürdigen Reisen, 1747–74, vol. 1, preface (“Vorrede,” unpaginated).

  72. Laharpe, Abrégé de l’Histoire Générale des Voyages, 1813–15, vol. 1, 7.

  73. Boucher de la Richarderie, Bibliothèque universelle des voyages, 1808, vol. 1, 93.

  74. Beckmann, Litteratur der älteren Reisebeschreibungen, 1807–10, vol. 1, 200.

  75. Hakluyt, Hakluyt’s Edition of the Early Voyages, Travels, and Discoveries of the English Nation, 1809–12.

  76. Pinkerton, General Collection, 1808–14.

  77. At the same time, a precious novelty was presented by Paulus in volume 3 (1794) of his Sammlung der merkwürdigsten Reisen in den Orient (1792–1803), where he had unearthed reports on Egypt by the seventeenth-century traveler Johann Michael Wansleb.

  78. Pinkerton, General Collection, 1808–14, vol. 1, v.

  79. Pinkerton, Modern Geography, 1807. The first edition came out in two volumes in 1802.

  80. Walckenaer, Histoire générale des voyages, 1826–31. See especially Walckenaer’s magisterial survey of the history of geographical knowledge from antiquity to the early Portuguese voyages. The author deals extensively with the Arab contribution: vol. 1, 1–55.

  81. Marsden, Travels of Marco Polo, 1818, xviii.

  82. For example E.A.W. Zimmermann’s Annalen der Geographie und Statistik, Braunschweig 1790–92, in three volumes.

  83. Pinkerton, General Collection, 1808–14, vol. 7 (1811), 652ff.

  84. Annales de Voyages, vol. 24 (1814), 214–26.

  85. Sprengel, Auswahl der besten ausländischen geographischen und statistischen Nachrichten, vol. 10 (1798), 1–328; vol. 11 (1798), 1–349.

  86. Sprengel, Auswahl der besten ausländischen geographischen und statistischen Nachrichten, vol. 10 (1798), vi–vii.

  87. Fabian, “English Books and Their Eighteenth-Century German Readers,” 1976, 165–74; Fabian, “Englisch als neue Fremdsprache des 18. Jahrhunderts,” 1985, 178.

  88. See a study on Scheuchzer’s English translation (1727) of Kaempfer’s German manuscript about his stay in Japan: Bodart-Bailey, “Kaempfer Restor’d,” 1988, esp. 14ff., and the same author’s introduction to her own new translation of the source: Kaempfer, Kaempfer’s Japan, 1999, 7–10.

  89. Bruce, Reisen in das Innere von Africa, 1791, vol. 1, i.

  90. Bruce, Reisen zur Entdeckung der Quellen des Nils, 1791. No lesser scholar than the famous anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach of Göttingen University provided the annotations to this edition.

  91. Percy, Hau Kiou Choaan, 1761. See also D. Porter, Chinese Taste in Eighteenth-Century, 2010, 156.

  92. Tzoref-Ashkenazi, “Romantic Attitudes toward Oriental Despotism,” 2013, 291.

  93. Translator’s preface, in Valentia, Reisen nach Indien, 1811, vol. 1, v.

  94. Barrow, Reise durch China, 1804, vol. 2, preface (“Vorbericht,” unpaginated).

  95. Barrow, Reise durch China, 1804, vol. 1, 85.

  96. New edition: Hüttner, Nachricht von der britischen Gesandtschaftsreise durch China, 1996.

  97. Guthke, Die Reise ans Ende der Welt, 2011, 161–89.

  98. Hoare, Tactless Philosopher, 1976, 236–37.

  99. See the impressive bibliography of Johann Reinhold Forster’s activities as an editor and translator of travel literature in Hoare, Tactless Philosopher, 1976, 353–72.

100. Hoare, Tactless Philosopher, 1976, 202.

101. The following is based on Friese, “Einleitung,” 1991, xxiii–xxx, as well as Thunberg, Voyages de C. P. Thunberg au Japon, 1796, vol. 1, vi–vii.

102. See Brot, “L’abbé Raynal, lecteur de l’Histoire générale des voyages,” 1995.

103. See the English translation Valentyn, Description of Ceylon, 1978. Only in 1803 was Knox’s old account superseded by a description based on a recent visit to the country: Percival, Account of the Island of Ceylon, 1805. Somewhat derivative in relation to Percival is Cordiner, Description of Ceylon, 1807.

104. Wolf, Reise nach Zeilan, 1781–84.

105. Rietbergen, Japan verwoord, 2003, 285–300.

106. Prichard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, vol. 4 (1844), 521.

107. Morison, “Old Bruin,” 1967, 276.

108. See Willson, Mythical Image, 1964, 53, 87, 212; Goerres, Mythengeschichte der asiatischen Welt, 1810, vol. 1, 40, 45. Johann Christoph Adelung was another prominent supporter of the idea that the “Urvolk” was located in Kashmir: Mithridates, 1806–17, vol. 1, 8–9. See also Petri, Urvolkhypothese, 1990.

109. Busbecq, Travels into Turkey, 1744; for a modern edition see Busbecq, Turkish Letters, 1927.

110. See Hammer-Purgstall, Constantinopolis, 1822, vol. 1, xiii–xiv; Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches (1827–35), vol. 3 (1828), 333–35.

111. Kühn, Neugestaltung der deutschen Geographie im 18. Jahrhundert, 1939, 9.

112. Abel-Remusat, Nouveaux mélanges asiatiques, 1829, vol. 1, 291–92.

113. For example Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 1; D. Stewart, Collected Works, 1854–60, vol. 9, 391.

114. Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reiches Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, 1815, vol. 1, x.

115. Woodhead, “ ‘The Present Terrour of the World,’ ” 1987, 23.

116. For example, Martini, De bello tartarico historia, 1654, 4; Kircher, China, 1667, 87–90; Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 1, i. The typical assessment of the mid-eighteenth century is summarized in Harris and Campbell, Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, 1744–48, vol. 1, 593.

117. C. Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. 3 (1835), 514. Also Hegel, Die orientalische Welt, 1923, 277.

118. Bruzen de la Martinière, Grand dictionnaire géographique, 1768, vol. 1, vii.

119. Meiners, Grundriß der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1793, 324; he thinks that only Simon de La Loubère’s acount of Siam is of comparable quality (351). For a modern assessment of Chardin see Emerson, “Sir John Chardin,” 1992: “Whenever an important Persian text on a particular topic is available, it confirms not only the general accuracy of Chardin’s reports but also its usefulness in clarifying and supplementing that text” (373–74).

120. Review of Morier, Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor (1812), in Eclectic Review vol. 8, pt. 1 (1812), 116.

121. Büsching to Müller, August 19, 1780, in Hoffmann and Osipov, Geographie, Geschichte und Bildungswesen, 1995, 467.

122. B. G. Niebuhr, Lebensnachrichten über Barthold Georg Niebuhr, 1838–39, vol. 1, 227, also 168.

123. Cited in Grafton, The Footnote, 1997, 49.

124. See Gaulmier, L’idéologue Volney, 1951, 114–21, on the sensational success of Volney’s book.

125. Oliver, American Travelers on the Nile: Early U.S. Visitors to Egypt, 1774–1839, 2014, 24.

126. Volney, “Tableau du climat et du sol des États-Unis,” in Œuvres (1989–98), vol. 2, 21–285, quote 30. However, this book is replete with descriptions of landscapes that might be compared to Humboldt’s contemporaneous work on Latin America.

127. Harrison and Laslett, Library of John Locke, 1971, 27.

128. Schultz, “Goethe and the Literature of Travel,” 1949, 446ff.; see also numerous contributions by Karl S. Guthke, e.g., his Goethes Weimar, 2001, and also Guthke, Die Erfindung der Welt, 2005; Guthke, Die Reise ans Ende der Welt, 2011.

129. Magazin von … Reisebeschreibungen, vol. 1 (1790), preface (“Vorwort”); Plewe, Carl Ritter Bibliothek, 1978.

130. Bernoulli, Unterrichtendes Verzeichniß einer Berlinischen Privatbibliothek, 1783, preface (“Vorbericht”). On library holdings of travel literature see also Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire, 1971, 66–75; Blanke, Politische Herrschaft und soziale Ungleichheit, 1997, vol. 2, 1–20.

131. Montesquieu, Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu, vol. 16: Geographica, 2007; Minuti, Una geografia politica della diversità, 2015, 163–90, esp. 165; Dodds, Les récits de voyages, 1929.

132. Grundmann, Die geographischen und völkerkundlichen Quellen, 1900, on Asia: 42–64; Jäger, “Herder als Leser von Reiseliteratur,” 1986.

133. Curley, Samuel Johnson and the Age of Travel, 1976, quote 238–39.

134. Platteau, Les économistes classiques et le sous-développement, 1978, vol. 1, 14, 53ff.

135. The sixth, extensively revised edition (1826) of his Essay on the Principle of Population (first edition 1798) shows Malthus as a particularly well-informed reader of the most up-to-date literature on societies outside Europe. See Malthus, Works, 1986, vols. 2 and 3 (with a bibliography of the books cited: vol. 3, 701ff.).

136. Marshall, “Introduction,” in Burke, India: The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment, 1991, 20ff.

137. Falconer, Remarks, 1781; Hirschfeld, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 2015.

138. See Keighren, Withers, and Bell, Travels into Print, 68–99.

139. Castoldi, Il fascino del colibrí, 1972, 187.

140. 1813 in Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, see Blanke, “Verfassungen,” 1983, 154–55.

141. A. v. Humboldt, Zentral-Asien, 2009, 27.

142. See, for example, the translator’s “avertissement” (unpaginated) in Pétis de la Croix, Histoire de Timur-Bec, 1723.

143. On the significance and impact of the work see Gierl, Geschichte als präzisierte Wissenschaft, 2012, 361–65.

144. Baumgarten and Semler, Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie, 1744–67, vol. 1 (1744), 27, also 18; Pigulla, China in der deutschen Weltgeschichtsschreibung, 1996, 125–27.

145. Baumgarten and Semler, Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie, 1744–67, vol. 21 (1760), 515–16.

146. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 2, xii–xiii.

147. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 844–47.

148. A charge leveled at Prince Cantemir, the historian of the Ottoman Empire, by the anonymous authors of the volume on the Ottomans as part of the German Uebersetzung der Algemeine Welthistorie: vol. 27, 1764, 330–32. A modern assessment comes, basically, to a similar conclusion: Leezenberg, “The Oriental Origins of Orientalism,” 2012, 254–55.

149. “Daß man die bisherigen Beschreibungen bald als die einzige mögliche Quelle nöthig haben wird, um das ächtorientalische, welches so lange fast ungeändert fortgepflanzt war, von dem modernisierten und europäisierten zu unterscheiden,” Paulus, Sammlung, 1792–1803, vol. 5 (1799), preface (“Vorrede,” unpaginated).

150. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Discours sur l’inégalité,” 1755, in Rousseau, Œuvres, 1959–95, vol. 3 (1975), 212–13. Rousseau, Basic Political Writings, 1987, 100.

151. Quoted in Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire, 1971, 99.

152. Johann Salomo Semler, in Baumgarten and Semler, Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie, 1744–67, vol. 26 (1764), 5.

153. The clear-cut distinction between scholars and gentlemen that Shapin (Social History of Truth, 1994) wishes to draw is difficult to find in eighteenth-century sources.

154. Langsdorff, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise um die Welt, 1813, vol. 1, ix.

155. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 579.

156. S. Johnson, “Essay on the ‘Description of China,’ ” 1742, 320.

157. S. Johnson, “Essay on the ‘Description of China,’ ” 1742, 320.

158. Anonymous review of Edward Scott Waring, Tour to Sheeraz (1807), in Edinburgh Review, April 1807, 63. The other worked mentioned in the review is Francklin, Observations Made on a Tour from Bengal to Persia, 1790.

159. Swiderski, The False Formosan, 1991; Keevak, The Pretended Asian, 2004, 1–6; Breen, “No Man Is an Island,” 2013.

160. Psalmanazar, Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, 1704.

161. Millar, Origins of the Distinction of Ranks, 2006, 90.

162. Pauw, Recherches philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois, 1773, vol. 1, v, 9, 70.

163. G. L. Staunton, Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, 1797, vol. 2, 159; Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 170.

164. C.L.J. de Guignes, Voyages à Peking, 1808, vol. 2, 288; Abel, Narrative of a Journey into the Interior of China, 1819, 234.

165. Sonnerat, Voyages aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine, 1782, vol. 2, 22.

166. Voltaire, “Essai sur les mœurs,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 26A (2013), 322.

167. In private letters that seem to have been unrelated to the public relations initiatives of the Jesuit order, Père Gaubil reports amazing numbers of those dying children. In 1752 he claims that, during the past couple of years, more than six thousand had been baptized per annum. Gaubil, Correspondance de Pékin, 1970, 722, also 387, 445, 535.

168. Père Joseph Amiot, in Mémoires concernant l’histoire … des Chinois, 1776–1814, vol. 6 (1780), 327–31.

169. Malthus, Works, 1986, vol. 2, 130–36.

170. Chambers, A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, 1772.

171. Hirschfeld, Theorie der Gartenkunst, 1779–85, vol. 1, 99.

172. Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, 1790, vol. 1, xxv–xxvi.

173. Shapin, Social History of Truth, 1994.

CHAPTER VIII. THE RAW FORCES OF HISTORY: APOCALYPTIC HORSEMEN, CONQUERORS, USURPERS

    1. Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 60; the English translation quoted here was published half a century after the original: Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 9; translation modified.

    2. This is the basic narrative line in the best English-language history of Central Asia: Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road, 2009.

    3. Frankopan, The Silk Roads, 2015, 508–21.

    4. Hegel, Die orientalische Welt, 1923, 342.

    5. Avril, Voyage en divers états d’Europe et d’Asie, 1692, 195.

    6. For example, Pufendorf et al., Introduction à l’Histoire moderne, 1753–69, vol. 7, 299.

    7. The Manchu conquest of China was not a one-time event but a lengthy process. See Rowe, The Great Qing, 2009, 11–30.

    8. See C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian, 1989, 35–40; Gommans, Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire, 1995, esp. 33ff. Among contemporary historians, Alexander Dow was particularly obsessed with what he termed the “Afghan Empire.”

    9. A contemporary account for the British public was C. Hamilton, An Historical Relation of the Origin, Progress, and Final Dissolution of the Government of Rohilla Afgans, 1787, 21ff., where the author shows considerable sympathy for the Rohillas’ point of view. See also Francklin, History of the Reign of Shah-Aulum, 1798. 60ff. Warren Hastings’ brutal treatment of the Rohillas in this war later, in 1786, was one of the main charges in Edmund Burke’s impeachment of Hastings. See Burke, India: The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment, 1991, 79–119; Whelan, Edmund Burke and India, 1996, 142–45. A German author accused Hastings of what would today be called genocide: Breitenbauch, Ergänzungen der Geschichte von Asien und Afrika, 1783–87, vol. 2, 122. For the historical background see Husain, Ruhela Chieftaincies, 1994.

  10. For the full range of European responses, culminating in Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, see Bonacina, The Wahhabis Seen through European Eyes, 2015.

  11. Perdue, China Marches West, 2005, 270–87.

  12. Condorcet, Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain, 1988, 270; Condorcet, Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind, 1796, 257. See also Leibniz’s worries of 1699: ch. 1 above, fn. 3.

  13. Kappeler, Russian Empire, 2001, 123.

  14. “Verpesteter Windhauch”: A. v. Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur, 1987, 7.

  15. Volney, “Les ruines, ou méditation sur les révolutions des empires,” in Volney, Œuvres, 1989–98, vol. 1, 225. On this remarkable work as a “cosmic” theory of decadence see Moravia, Il tramonto dell’illuminismo, 1986, 163–67.

  16. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 691–98, 727 (quote).

  17. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 588.

  18. Voltaire, “Histoire de Charles XII,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 4, 1996, 542.

  19. Lueder, Geschichte der vornehmsten Völker der alten Welt, 1800, 77.

  20. Strahlenberg, Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia, 1730, 16.

  21. Temple, “Of Heroic Virtue,” in Works, 1814, vol. 3, 357–59.

  22. Temple, “Of Heroic Virtue,” in Works, 1814, vol. 3, 397–98; a later discussion is Virey, Histoire naturelle du genre humain, 1824, vol. 1, 469ff.

  23. Ranke, Weltgeschichte (1881–88), pt. 8, 420, 417.

  24. Ranke, Weltgeschichte (1881–88), pt. 9, sec. 1, 271.

  25. Ranke, Weltgeschichte (1881–88), pt. 1, sec., ix; pt. 8, 417.

  26. Ranke, Weltgeschichte (1881–88), pt. 9, sec. 1, 274.

  27. Ranke, Weltgeschichte (1881–88), pt. 4, sec. 1, 300.

  28. See Müller, Geschichte der antiken Ethnographie, 1972–80, vol. 2, 192–94.

  29. Fessler, Attila, 1794, 96.

  30. Robertson, Progress of Society in Europe, 1972, 15.

  31. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 2, 297–98, 306–7. For Gibbon’s view on the impact of the Huns on the fate of the Western empire see Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, vol. 6, 2015, 391–414.

  32. Richardson, Dissertation on the Languages, Literature and Manners of Eastern Nations, 1778, pt. 2, 149.

  33. Montesquieu, “Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence,” ch. 19, in Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu, vol. 2, 2000, 242.

  34. See the editorial comments in Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu, vol. 2, 2000, 242, fn. 12; Minuti, Una geografia politica della diversità, 2015, 91.

  35. Schmidt, Forschungen im Gebiete der älteren religiösen, politischen und literärischen Bildungsgeschichte der Völker Mittel-Asiens, 1824, 1–2.

  36. For example, Sir William Jones, “On Asiatic History, Civil and Natural” [1792], in Jones, Works, 1807, vol. 3, 208–11. This would become a favorite motif in romantic conceptions of history. See the idea of “Völkerströme” (ethnic flooding) in Goerres, Mythengeschichte der asiatischen Welt, 1810. The history of migrations later assumes a central position in Prichard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, 1836–47.

  37. Volney, “Les ruines, ou méditation sur les révolutions des empires,” in Volney, Œuvres, 1989–98, vol. 1, 221.

  38. Peyssonnell, Observations historiques & géographiques, 1765, 19 and passim.

  39. See, in general, Mohnhaupt, “Spielarten ‘revolutionärer’ Entwicklung,” 1988. A parallel development was that of the concept of “revolution” in geology. Peter Simon Pallas and Georges Cuvier were particularly important in this regard.

  40. Achenwall, Staatsverfassung der heutigen vornehmsten Europäischen Reiche und Völker, 1768, 6.

  41. Gatterer, Versuch einer allgemeinen Weltgeschichte bis zur Entdeckung Amerikens, 1792, 1.

  42. Anquetil-Duperron, Dignité du commerce, 1789, 41.

  43. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 1, 1 (preface).

  44. “Great Revolution”: Baumgarten and Semler, Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie, 1744–67, vol. 25 (1763), 152–248 (the most detailed and comprehensive description of the events in China in eighteenth-century European literature); the classic source is Martini, De bello tatarico historia, 1654; see also Van Kley, “News from China,” 1973; Mungello, Curious Land, 1985, 110–16.

  45. See Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World, 1991; G. Parker, Global Crisis, 2013.

  46. Dunbar, Essays on the History of Mankind, 1781, vol. 2, 275–76; Castilhon, Considérations, 1769, 252; Roubaud, Histoire générale de l’Asie, 1770–72, vol. 2, 283.

  47. A number of contemporaries applied the term “revolution” to the British expansion in India, e.g., Francklin, History of the Reign of Shah-Aulum, 1798, 185; Herrmann, Gemählde von Ostindien, 1799, 54; Dubois, Description of the Character, Manners and Customs of the People of India, 1817, xiv.

  48. E. Burke, “Speech on Fox’s India Bill” (December 1, 1783), in Burke, India: Madras and Bengal 1774–1785, 1981, 402.

  49. Maurice, Modern History of Hindostan, 1802–10, vol. 1, 181. On the author see Grewal, Muslim Rule in India, 1970, 58–62.

  50. Tott, Memoirs of Baron de Tott, 1786, vol. 1, x. Similar: Fischer, Sibirische Geschichte, 1768, 50.

  51. Baumgarten and Semler, Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie, 1744–67, vol. 21 (1760), 512.

  52. Baumgarten and Semler, Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie, 1744–67, vol. 21 (1760), 636–37.

  53. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 793, fn. 6. Similarly, Malcolm, History of Persia, 1829, vol. 1, 254–56.

  54. Two centuries later, the Elizabethan writer Richard Knolles, still reprinted in the eighteenth century, takes the side of Timur in the struggle between the two “tyrants” Timur and Sultan Bajazit I: Turkish History, 1687–1700, vol. 1, 153–54, 157–58.

  55. Voegelin, Anamnesis, 1966, 154, 156–59, 169–70; Nagel, Timur der Eroberer, 1993, 9–10. On the image of Timur in the eighteenth century see also Minuti, Oriente barbarico, 1994, 17ff., 22ff.; on the historical Timur see Manz, Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, 1989; Roemer, Persien auf dem Weg in die Neuzeit, 1989, 57–120; Nagel, Timur der Eroberer, 1993. George Frideric Handel’s opera (“dramma per musica”) Tamerlano was first staged in 1724. My analysis focuses on the political Timur leaving aside a different line of reception that emerged in the 1670s and placed Timur’s amorous entanglements at the center of attention. Handel is part of that tradition.

  56. This made it possible for British authors of the nineteenth century to claim the ambivalent tradition of Timur for the British raj.

  57. D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, 1777–79, vol. 3, 500–521.

  58. Visdelou, “Histoire abregée de la Tartarie,” 1779, 277–78.

  59. D’Anville, L’Empire Turc, 1772, 28. See also Rennell, Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan, 1793, liv: Timur was “an inhuman monster.”

  60. Margat de Tilly, Histoire de Tamerlan, 1739, vol. 2, 385; also Catrou, History of the Mogul Dynasty, 1826, 8; Manucci, Storia do Mogor, 1906–8, vol. 1, 97–103. The peak of enthusiasm for Timur was reached with Pétis de la Croix, Histoire de Timur-Bec, 1723, vol. 4, 296–300; also Holberg, Vergleichung der Historien und Thaten, 1748–54, vol. 1, 29ff.

  61. Margat de Tilly, Histoire de Tamerlan, 1739, vol. 2, 386–87.

  62. Baumgarten and Semler, Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie, 1744–67, vol. 22 (1761), 439.

  63. White, Institutes Political and Military … of Timour, 1783; Remer, Darstellung der Gestalt der historischen Welt in jedem Zeitraume, 1794, 172.

  64. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 130ff.

  65. White, Institutes Political and Military … of Timour, 1783, vii.

  66. For example, Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, lxii et seq.; Mills, History of Muhammedanism, 1817, 214–15.

  67. Maurice, Modern History of Hindostan, 1802–10, vol. 2, vii, 3ff., 12–13.

  68. Voltaire, “Essai sur les mœurs,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 24, 2011, 359–78, quote 375. See also a long editorial comment on Voltaire’s perception of Timur: 359–63, unnumbered footnote. See Briant, Alexandre des Lumières, 2012, 104–9, 273–77, on Voltaire’s image of Alexander.

  69. On Joseph de Guignes, one of the greatest of eighteenth-century historians, see Minuti, Oriente barbarico, 1994, 141–69; Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, vol. 4, 2005, 133–53.

  70. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 828.

  71. J. de Guignes, Histoire générale des huns, 1756–58, vol. 4, 13.

  72. J. de Guignes, Histoire générale des huns, 1756–58, vol. 4, 27, 31.

  73. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 850, and he adds a characteristic footnote (850, fn. 67): “The Mogul emperor was rather pleased than hurt with the victory of a subject: a chess-player will feel the value of this encomium!”

  74. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 849.

  75. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 852.

  76. Malcolm, History of Persia, 1829, vol. 1, 312; a similar view in Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 1 (1827), 253–337.

  77. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 1 (1827), 315–16.

  78. Curzon, Problems of the Far East, 1894, 2.

  79. Herrmann, Gemählde von Ostindien, 1799, 177.

  80. Tucker, Nadir Shah’s Quest for Legitimacy, 2006, 71–72.

  81. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 1938, 20. On the historical Nadir Shah see Avery, “Nâdir Shâh and the Afsharid Legacy,” 1991; Axworthy, Sword of Persia, 2006; Tucker, Nadir Shah’s Quest for Legitimacy, 2006 (with a useful chronology: xi–xiv); see also Subrahmanyam, Explorations in Connected History, 2005, 185–209.

  82. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 1938, 148–54. A highly dramatized narrative of the events is Claustre, Histoire du Thamas Kouli-Kan, 1743, 426ff., a mostly derivative work.

  83. For example, Pufendorf et al., Introduction à l’Histoire moderne, 1753–69, vol. 7, 539.

  84. Dalrymple, Koh-i-Noor, 2017.

  85. Hanway, Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea, 1753, vol. 1, 331.

  86. Baumgarten, “Vorrede,” 1744, 12.

  87. A digest of those report for an eighteenth-century reading public was Marigny, Histoire des révolutions de l’empire des Arabes, 1750–52, vol. 4, 260–525. Nadir Shah is also included.

  88. Voltaire, “Histoire de l’Empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 47 (1999), 913–14.

  89. Excerpts in Laurens, Les origines intellectuels de l’expédition d’Égypte, 1987, 133–35.

  90. On his biography see Lockhart, Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, 1958, 516–25.

  91. The result was Clodius, Chronicon Peregrinantis, 1731. Krusinski’s report—“very reliable” even by the standards of critical scholarship (Lockhart, “European Contacts with Persia 1350–1736,” 1986, 409)—is extensively used, alongside many other sources, in the most respectable of several mid-seventeenth histories of modern Persia: Clairac, Histoire de Perse depuis le commencement de ce siècle, 1750.

  92. Krusinski, History of the Revolution in Persia, 1728, vol. 1, 149.

  93. Krusinski, History of the Revolution in Persia, 1728, vol. 2, 9.

  94. Krusinski, History of the Revolution in Persia, 1728, vol. 2, 99.

  95. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 8, 30; Orme, History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan, 1763–78, vol. 1, 2.

  96. See Laurens, Les origines intellectuels de l’expédition d’Égypte, 1987, 139–40.

  97. On Fassmann as a major representative of early eighteenth-century orientalism see Dreyfürst, Stimmen aus dem Jenseits, 2014, 415–563.

  98. Quelle, Herkunft, Leben und Thaten des Persianischen Monarchens Schach Nadyr, 1738, 573, 665.

  99. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 1938, 312; also C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 2, 275.

100. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 1938, 304–5.

101. J. Fraser, History of Nadir Shah, 1742, 130.

102. J. Fraser, History of Nadir Shah, 1742, 185, 220–23.

103. J. Fraser, History of Nadir Shah, 1742, 227–34.

104. Claustre, Histoire du Thamas Kouli-Kan, 1743, 437.

105. For example, see J.- P. Bougainville, Parallèle de l’expédition d’Alexandre dans les Indes avec la conquête des mêmes par Thamas Kouli Khan, 1752, 140–41, who mainly relies on Otter’s travel account of 1748; Hanway, Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea, 1753, vol. 4, 143–46.

106. Hanway, Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea, 1753, vol. 4, 263.

107. Hanway, Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea, 1753, vol. 4, 271–83. On Hanway see Pugh, Jonas Hanway, 1787.

108. Ta’rikh-i-Nadiri. William Jones’s translation: Jones, Histoire de Shah Nader, 1770; also in Jones, Works, 1807, vols. 11 and 12 (on Nadir in the later stage of his career—Nadir’s nadir, so to speak—see esp. book 6). See Franklin, Orientalist Jones, 2011, 64–66.

109. W. Jones, Works, 1807, vol. 11, iii.

110. Meiners, Betrachtungen über die Fruchtbarkeit, oder Unfruchtbarkeit, über den vormahligen und gegenwärtigen Zustand der vornehmsten Länder in Asie, 1795–96, vol. 1, 179. A similar assessment, though with less hyperbole, from the same year by the historian Thomas Maurice is quoted in Grewal, Muslim Rule in India, 1970, 60.

111. “Je suis celui que Dieu envoie contre les Nations sur lesquelles il veut faire tomber sa colère.” Nadir quoted by Otter, Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, 1748, vol. 1, 414.

112. Bernoulli, Des Pater Joseph Tieffenthaler’s … Beschreibung von Hindustan, 1785–88, vol. 2, pt. 2, 39.

113. Grewal, Muslim Rule in India, 1970, 67.

114. Malcolm paints the brutality of the conquest and occupation of Persia by the Afghans in the darkest colors. He estimates the demographic losses at nearly one million lives. Malcolm, History of Persia, 1829, vol. 1, 472.

115. From Indian sources he took the figure of (only) eight thousand deaths among the population of the city: Malcolm, History of Persia, 1829, vol. 2, 33.

116. More contemporary evidence of atrocities in Persia: Bonnerot, La Perse dans la littérature et la pensée françaises au XVIIIe siècle, 1988, 43–67.

117. Bonnerot, La Perse dans la littérature et la pensée françaises au XVIIIe siècle, 1988, 52.

118. Bonnerot, La Perse dans la littérature et la pensée françaises au XVIIIe siècle, 1988, 47.

119. E.g., Brougham, Political Philosophy, 1842–43, vol. 1, 125.

120. Wilson, India Conquered, 2016, 82.

121. W. Jones, Works, 1807, vol. 11, vii.

122. See as a general survey C. A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, 1988, 18–32, and a more dramatic political account: Wilson, India Conquered, 2016, ch. 3.

123. This had not escaped the notice of contemporary European observers, see Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 1993, 765–68.

124. E.g., J. Scott, Historical and Political View of the Deccan, 1791, 22. See also S. Gordon, Marathas, 1993, 178ff.

125. There has been considerable historiographical interest in late-eighteenth-century Mysore. For an introduction see Habib, Confronting Colonialism, 1999; Prakash, et al. Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan, 2001; more specifically on Mysore politics and politico-religious culture see Brittlebank, Tipu Sultan’s Search for Legitimacy, 1997.

126. Marshall, “Cornwallis Triumphant,” 1992, 61ff.; Teltscher, India Inscribed, 1995, 229–58.

127. Teltscher, India Inscribed, 1995, 230.

128. Tennant, Indian Recreations, 1803, 184.

129. Maistre de la Tour, History of Ayder Ali Khan, 1784, vol. 1, v.

130. Maistre de la Tour, History of Ayder Ali Khan, 1784, vol. 1, 159.

131. See S. Gordon, Marathas, 1993, 158.

132. Robson, Life of Hyder Ally, 1786, 103.

133. Robson, Life of Hyder Ally, 1786, 105.

134. Fullarton, A View of the English Interests in India, 1788, 62.

135. Fullarton, A View of the English Interests in India, 1788, 63–65. Also Michaud, Histoire des progrès et de la chûte de l’empire de Mysore, 1801, vol. 1, 33ff.

136. Sprengel, Geschichte der Maratten, 1791, 13, 19. The sophistication of Sprengel’s analysis becomes apparent when compared with other contemporary treatments of the same or related topics: naive narratives (J. Kerr, Mahrattah State, 1782) or simple chronicles of rulers (a prime example in Asian history is Hüllmann, Geschichte der Mongolen, 1796).

137. Sprengel, Hyder Aly und Tippo Saheb, 1801, 3. See also Perrin, Voyage dans l’Indostan, 1807, vol. 1, 193.

138. Sprengel. Hyder Aly und Tippo Saheb, 1801, 13–14.

139. Sprengel. Hyder Aly und Tippo Saheb, 1801, 34–36. There is a similar portrait of Tipu Sultan in Buchanan, Journey from Madras, 1807, vol. 1, 70ff., who emphasizes the decline of Mysore’s economy after Haidar Ali.

140. Wilks, Historical Sketches of the South of India, 1810–17, especially vol. 2.

141. Mill, History of British India, 1817, vol. 2, 444.

CHAPTER IX. SAVAGES AND BARBARIANS

    1. “Sûrement ces écrivains diraient aussi que tous les Nègres et tous les moutons se ressemblent; mais cela prouve seulement qu’il n’y ont pas regardé de si près que le berger et le marchand d’esclaves.” Volney, Œuvres, 1989–98, vol. 2 (1989), 342.

    2. The peak of Kangxi panegyrics is represented by d’Orléans, Histoire des deux conquerans tartares, 1690, 145ff.; Bouvet, Histoire de l’Empereur de la Chine, 1699, esp. 12–13, 18ff.; Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 1, 545 –46; vol. 2, 5ff.; Mailla, Histoire générale de la Chine, 1777–80, vol. 11, 354ff.; Abel-Rémusat, Nouveaux mélanges asiatiques, 1829, vol. 2, 21–44. Very interesting general reflections in Turgot, “Plan du premier discours sur la formation des gouvernement et le mélange des nations” [c. 1751], in Turgot, Œuvres, 1913–23, vol. 1 (1913), 289–90.

    3. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 2, 534–47.

    4. Fundamentally important for the transformation of travel reports into fiction are Lowes, Road to Xanadu, 1927 and Barrell, Infection of Thomas De Quincey, 1991.

    5. This topic has been discussed frequently, see Landucci, I filosofi e i selvaggi, 1972; Krauss, Zur Anthropologie des 18. Jahrhunderts, 1979; Kohl, Entzauberter Blick, 1986; Batra, Wild Men in the Looking Glass, 1994; Ellingson, Myth of the Noble Savage, 2001 (mainly on American Indians); Muthu, Enlightenment against Empire, 2003, ch. 2.

    6. S. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Rußland zur Untersuchung der drey Natur-Reiche, 1770–84, vol. 1, 44–47.

    7. E.g., Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 22, 328–29; Mémoires concernant l’histoire … des Chinois, 1776–1814, vol. 3 (1788), 387–412 (an account of the Qing dynasty’s war against the Miao people in 1775). See also J. de Guignes, Histoire générale des huns, 1756–58, vol. 2, 92.

    8. Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 18, 413ff., esp. 430; Grosier, Description générale de la Chine, 1785, 212–13.

    9. Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China, 1967, 177.

  10. Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China, 1967, 488; Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy from the Governor General of India to the Court of Ava, 1834, vol. 2, 170ff., 262ff.

  11. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 1, 121.

  12. Güldenstädt, Reise durch Rußland und ins Caucasische Gebürge, 1787–91, vol. 1, 471 (on the Ossetes); see also Pallas on the Chechens: Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die südlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs, 1799–1801, vol. 1, 418, and in general Pallas’s magnificent enthnography of the peoples of the Caucasus: 364ff.

  13. Reineggs, Allgemeine historisch-topographische Beschreibung des Kaukasus, 1796–97, vol. 1, 40.

  14. Sommer, Neuestes Gemälde von Asien, 1834, vol. 1, 83–84.

  15. Dampier, A New Voyage round the World, 1697, 485.

  16. Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 1993, 1913. In the eighteenth century, the motif of cannibalism was mainly linked to the Pacific islands, as in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719/20). More generally, Rennie, Far-Fetched Facts, 1996, 181–97. On the motif of cannibalism in America see Still, Enlightenment Hospitality, 2011, 87–135.

  17. Stavorinus, Reise nach dem Vorgebirge der Guten Hoffnung, 1796, 59, an author who admits that he, like so many others, knows of cannibalism only by hearsay.

  18. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 589; 796 on cannibalism during the siege of Peking by Genghis Khan.

  19. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, 390. The true scandal, in European eyes, was ritual cannibalism without any urgent physical need. But need, too, could turn into some kind of routine, as pointed out in Steeb, Versuch einer allgemeinen Beschreibung von dem Zustand der ungesitteten und gesitteten Voelker, 1766, 51.

  20. Quoted in Wurtzburg, Raffles, 1954, 559.

  21. Wurtzburg, Raffles, 1954, 562.

  22. Symes, Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, 1800, 130–31

  23. Symes, Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, 1800, 133.

  24. Landucci, I filosofi e i selvaggi, 1972, 389 and, in great detail, 394ff.

  25. Krashenninikov, Explorations of Kamchatka, 1972, 70 (referring to “the Americans”).

  26. Krashenninikov, Explorations of Kamchatka, 1972, 193.

  27. Krashenninikov, Explorations of Kamchatka, 1972, 242.

  28. Krashenninikov, Explorations of Kamchatka, 1972, 275.

  29. Krashenninikov, Explorations of Kamchatka, 1972, 205.

  30. Steller, Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka 1774, 332. Orlando di Lasso (1532–1594): composer and master of vocal polyphony, employed at the Bavarian court.

  31. Steller, Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka 1774, 288, fn a. On sexual practices in Kamchatka, especially pedophilia and transvestism, see 350–51. Herder explained the “impertinent lecherousness” of the people of Kamchatka with reference to the many volcanos and hot springs on the island: Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1989, 301.

  32. L.-A. Bougainville, Voyage autour du monde, 1982, 166. The classic passage on North America is Lafitau, Mœurs des sauvages ameriquains, 1724, vol. 1, 464.

  33. Krashenninikov, Explorations of Kamchatka, 1972, 203. This was no utopian fantasy of European zealots: “Like the other tribes of north-east Siberia, the Itelmens had no hereditary chiefs, and their social equality was modified only insofar as the opinion of a particularly brave or intelligent man would be listened to at clan gatherings.” Forsyth, History of the Peoples of Siberia, 1992, 132. Or is this judgment based on Krashenninikov?

  34. Forsyth, History of the Peoples of Siberia, 1992, 131–36; for a wider context see Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors, 1994, 60–71.

  35. Krashenninikov, Explorations of Kamchatka, 1972, 233.

  36. Russian settlements surrounded by wooden palisades.

  37. Steller, Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka 1774, 285.

  38. See Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage, 1976, passim and 129.

  39. See Nippel, Griechen, Barbaren und “Wilde,” 1990; Dihle, Die Griechen und die Fremden, 1994; Müller, Geschichte der antiken Ethnographie, 1972–80.

  40. See the major dictionaries: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., vol. 1, Oxford 1989, 945–47; Trésor de la langue française, vol. 4, Paris 1975, 162–64; Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 1, 854, col. 1124.

  41. “Les conquérants espagnols ne firent pas seulement pas entretenir ces canaux, mais les détruisirent de même que les chemins. Tel serait le sort de la Chine si les Européens s’en rendaient maître. Les Européens hors de leur pays sont aussi barbares que les Turcs et plus encore, car ils sont plus fanatiques.” A. v. Humboldt, Reise auf dem Río Magdalena durch die Anden und Mexico, 1986, 272.

  42. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 239, 241.

  43. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 3 (1828), 588; Knolles already expressed a similar viewpoint, Turkish History, 1687–1700, vol. 1, 765.

  44. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 583. Gibbon never applies the even more pejorative term “savages” to Muslims, but he uses it for the Christian mob during the First Crusade: “The promiscuous multitudes of Peter the Hermit were savage beasts, alike destitute of humanity and reason” (583).

  45. To dramatic effect in Gibbon’s portrait of Europe in the sixth century: Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 2, ch. 42.

  46. See Michel, Un mythe romantique, 1981, 37–38.

  47. Muratori, quoted in Michel, Un mythe romantique, 1981, 39.

  48. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 3 (1828), 221.

  49. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 7 (1831), 1–4.

  50. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte der Goldenen Horde, 1840, 38.

  51. An important author in this connection was Giambattista Vico. See Rossi, Dark Abyss of Time, 1984, 183ff.

  52. A different distinction, disregarded here, would be that between normative and empirical concepts. See the excellent study Medick, Naturzustand und Naturgeschichte der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, 1972.

  53. Pagden, Fall of Natural Man, 1982, 26.

  54. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 18/11, in Œuvres (1949–51), vol. 2, 537. Almost an echo of this is Encyclopédie, 1751–66, vol. 30, 188.

  55. Ferguson, Essay on the History of Civil Society, 1966, 82, 98–99, 105; Salvucci, Adam Ferguson, 1972, 374.

  56. For example, in the view of the French socialist Charles Fourier (1772–1837) who interposed a stage of “patriarchy” between savagery and barbarism.

  57. Rougemont, Précis d’ethnographie, 1835–37, vol. 1, 19.

  58. Hübner, Kurtze Fragen aus der Politischen Historia, 1727–31, vol. 9, 473.

  59. W. Jones, “Fifth Anniversary Discourse” [1788], in Works, 1807, vol. 3, 75.

  60. Richardson, Dissertation on the Languages, Literature and Manners of Eastern Nations, 1778, pt. 2, 141; Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jerusalem, 1968, 82.

  61. W. R. Jones, “The Image of the Barbarian in Medieval Europe,” 1971, 398.

  62. Blome, Geographical Description, 1670, 88–89.

  63. Report by a certain Mr. Whitting in Walpole, Travels in Various Countries of the East, 1820, 468.

  64. Voltaire to Bailly, November 19, 1776, in Bailly, Lettres sur l’origine des sciences, 1776, 5; Chateaubriand, Itinéraire des Paris à Jérusalem, 1968, 82.

  65. Blome, Geographical Description, 1670, 88–89.

  66. Witsen, Noord en Oost Tartayre, 1705; Avril, Voyage en divers états d’Europe et d’Asie, 1692. See also Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 1993, 1755–59.

  67. Ides, Three Years Travels from Moscow Over-Land to China, 1706; Brand, Beschreibung der Chinesischen Reise, 1698; the standard edition of Ides and Brand is Hundt, Beschreibung der dreijährigen chinesischen Reise, 1999; Lorentz Lange’s China journal in F. C. Weber, Das veränderte Rußland, 1738–39, pt. 1, 73–111; Bernard, Recueil de voyages du Nord, 1731–38, vols. 4, 8, and 10; Relation de la Grande Tartarie, 1737.

  68. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 4, esp. 75–422. The eight voyages by Gerbillon are comprehensively summarized in Prévost, Histoire générale des voyages, 1746–59, vol. 9 (1749).

  69. Messerschmidt, Forschungsreise durch Sibirien 1720–1727, 1962–77, also the book by a Swedish officer who accompied Messerschmidt from 1720 to 1922: Strahlenberg, Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia, 1730. Messerschmidt’s travel diary was only known in manuscript to a few experts; only brief excerpts were published during the eighteenth century.

  70. J. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien von dem Jahr 1733 bis 1743, 1751–52, vol. 1, 88.

  71. Visdelou, “Histoire abregée de la Tartarie,” 1779, 47.

  72. Visdelou, “Histoire abregée de la Tartarie,” 1779, 277–89, on the Yuan Dynasty.

  73. Baumgarten and Semler, Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie, 1744–67, vol. 21 (1760), 243.

  74. Strahlenberg, Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia, 1730, 54.

  75. Fischer, Sibirische Geschichte, 1768, 142.

  76. A brief summary of contemporary knowledge is given in Pinkerton, Modern Geography, 1807, vol. 1, 52. The older usage is still found in Aikin, Geographical Delineations, 1806, vol. 1, 364.

  77. Schmidt, Forschungen im Gebiete der älteren religiösen, politischen und literärischen Bildungsgeschichte der Völker Mittel-Asiens, 1824, 5. Similarly, Heeren, “Ideen,” in Heeren. Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 57; Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 7, fn. 8. On semantics see Klaproth, Mémoires relatifs à l’Asie, 1826–28, vol. 1, 461ff.

  78. Wisotzki, Zeitströmungen, 1897, 444–45; Broc, Les montagnes, 1969, 56–70.

  79. Joseph de Guignes arrived at similar results around the same time, basing himself on Chinese geographical works: Histoire générale des Huns, 1756–58, esp. vols. 2, pt. 2, and 3.

  80. Gatterer, Kurzer Begriff der Geographie, 1789, vol. 2. Gatterer’s nomenclature is quite unorthodox: “Mittelasien” includes Korea and Japan; South Asia encompasses the entire Southern belt from Anatolia via China through present-day Indonesia.

  81. Quoted in Wisotzki, Zeitströmungen, 1897, 448, 455.

  82. Pallas, Observations sur la formation des montagnes, 1779, 27.

  83. Gay, Enlightenment. 1966–69, vol. 1, 77–78.

  84. J. de Guignes, Mémoire, 1759. His principal critic was Cornelius de Pauw who, for once, was right. See also Zoli, La Cina e la cultura italiana, 1973, 140–49.

  85. See Petri, Urvolkhypothese, 1990, 120ff.

  86. Bailly, Lettres sur l’Atlantide, 1779, 220.

  87. Bailly, Lettres sur l’Atlantide, 1779, 224–25, 228–29, 232. An early German exponent of the thesis of Tartary as the “original home” of mankind was Zimmermann, Ueber die Verbreitung und Ausartung des Menschengeschlechts, 1778, 116. In Britain, the final rejection of the thesis came in 1801 with Lord Woodhouselee’s Elements of General History, 1825, vol. 2, 313–14.

  88. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 386; Adler and Menze, Herder on World History, 1997, 200. As a result of lengthy considerations, Prichard opted for Iran: Researches zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1837–47, vol. 4, 603.

  89. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 218–19; Adler and Menze, Herder on World History, 1997, 170. On Herder’s view of nomads see Muthu, Enlightenment against Empire, 2003, 238–46.

  90. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 217; Adler and Menze, Herder on World History, 1997, 169.

  91. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 218, 700–701, also 881. An entirely different story is told by the great geographer Carl Ritter: that of the slow growth of civilization among the Mongols after Genghis Khan. C. Ritter, Erdkunde, 1832–47, vol. 2 (1833), 388–95.

  92. Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 541.

  93. Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 541. The standard source, probably known to Raynal, was Georgius, Alphabetum Tibetanum, 1762.

  94. On Herder as a supreme empiricist see Zammito, Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology, 2002, 309–45.

  95. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 224.

  96. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 218; Adler and Menze, Herder on World History, 1997, 169.

  97. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Berlin 1822/1823, 1996; an English translation (minus the editorial comment) of this superb edition is Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, 2011.

  98. Hegel, as usual, was very well informed. He read many of the reports sent by the ex-Jesuits from Peking and edited by the abbé Grosier. See the editorial comment in Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Berlin 1822/1823, 1996, 538–40.

  99. Hegel, Die orientalische Welt, 1923, 332: “Die Mongolen herrschen über China, und ihm ist das andere Mongolische unterworfen.… Wir verstehen unter Mongolen auch die Mandschu, die über China herrschen. Sie hängen mit den eigentlichen Mongolen nicht zusammen und gehören zu den Tungusen.”

100. Hegel, Die orientalische Welt, 1923, 336. On Lamaism in Tibet see also Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, 2011, 293–303.

101. Hegel, “Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte. Einleitung. Geographische Grundlagen der Weltgeschichte,” in Hegel, Sämtliche Werke, 1927–40, vol. 11 (1928), 132; in a different textual tradition also Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction, 1975, 157ff.

102. The most pertinent texts are: Petech, I missionari Italiani nel Tibet e nel Nepal, 1954–56, vol. 5, 32–40, 44–46. Of special ethnographic interest are chapters 13 to 18 of book 2 in Petech’s edition of Desideri’s Relazione: vol. 6, 75–114.

103. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 4, 27; The General History of China, 1739, vol. 4, p. 132.

104. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, 2011, 302 (translation modified); Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Berlin 1822/1823, 1996, 231.

105. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, 2011, 302.

106. See Fletcher, “Ch’ing Inner Asia,” 1978, 52–56.

107. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 4, 38.

108. Plath, Geschichte des östlichen Asiens, 1830–31. See H. Franke, Zur Biographie von Johann Heinrich Plath, 1960, 11ff.

109. “C’est ainsi que dans l’empire de Russie il y a plus de différentes espèces, plus de singularités, plus de mœurs différentes que dans aucun pays de l’univers.” Voltaire, “Histoire de l’empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand” [1763], in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 46 (1999), 472–73; Voltaire, The History of Peter the Great, 1848, vol. 1, 30.

110. Relation de la Grande Tartarie, 1737, 4.

111. Georgi, Beschreibung aller Nationen des Rußischen Reichs, 1776–80, vol. 2, 88. The entire second volume of this work is devoted to the “Tatar nations.”

112. S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, 1800, 209, also 305.

113. Georgi, Beschreibung aller Nationen des Rußischen Reichs, 1776–80, vol. 2, 96.

114. For a full account of the Tungus, see Georgi, Beschreibung aller Nationen des Rußischen Reichs, 306–25; Georgi, Bemerkungen einer Reise im Rußischen Reich im Jahre 1772, 1775, 242ff; Pallas, Reise durch die verschiedenen Provinzen des Rußischen Reiches, 1771–76, vol. 3, 238–43; Fischer, Sibirische Geschichte, 1768, 110ff.

115. Georgi, Beschreibung aller Nationen des Rußischen Reichs, 1776–80, vol. 2, 392.

116. For example: J. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien von dem Jahr 1733 bis 1743, 1751–52, vol. 1, 283ff., 397ff.; vol. 2, 44ff., 351ff.

117. Georgi, Beschreibung aller Nationen des Rußischen Reichs, 1776–80, vol. 2, 395. On European perceptions of Asian shamanism see Flaherty, Shamanism and the Eighteenth Century, 1992, 45ff.

118. S. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Rußland zur Untersuchung der drey Natur-Reiche, 1770–84, vol. 2, 120–46, also vol. 1, 173–82; on the Don Cossacks also E. D. Clarke, Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa (1816–18), vol. 1, chs. 11 to 13.

119. Fischer, Sibirische Geschichte, 1768, 186ff., believes that the Cossacks themselves came to be civilized during this process of expansion.

120. “Ihro Zaare-Mayest. umb den Frieden zuerkauffen, sihet alsdann etwas Unkosten an sie zu wenden nicht an.” Olearius, Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung der Muscowitischen vnd Persischen Reyse, 1656, 48.

121. Thus Kappeler, Russian Empire, 2001, 45. The following passage is based on A. W. Fisher, Crimean Tartars, 1978, 49–69; for Crimean history, mainly in the seventeenth century, see Klein, The Crimean Khanate between East and West, 2012.

122. Witsen, Noord en Oost Tartarye, 1705, vol. 2, 567.

123. Kleemann, Reisen von Wien über Belgrad bis Kilianova, 1771, 39, 148–49, 158.

124. S. Franke, Die Reisen der Lady Craven durch Europa und die Türkei 1785–1786, 1995, 169–70; the source is: Craven, A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinopel, 1789. The tsarina undertook her famous “Taurida Voyage” to the South from January to July 1787.

125. Peyssonnell, Traité sur le commerce de la Mer Noire, 1787, vol. 2, 235–36, 267–76.

126. Peyssonnell, Traité sur le commerce de la Mer Noire, 1787, vol. 2, 279. The autonomy of the great aristocratic houses is also emphasized in Pallas, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die südlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs, 1799–1801, vol. 2, 357.

127. See A. W. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 1978, 26. In this light, it was easy to give a propagandistic gloss to the deportation of the Crimean Tatars during World War II.

128. A. W. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 1978, 17. See also Lazzerini, “The Crimea under Russian Rule,” 1988, 125ff.

129. Tott, Memoirs of Baron de Tott, 1786, vol. 1, pt. 2, 135.

130. E. D. Clarke, Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa, 1816–18, vol. 2, 144–47. This account is confirmed by Pallas’s depiction of devastated Kefe, although Pallas assures his readers that things were not so bad elsewhere in the Crimea: Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die südlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs, 1799–1801, vol. 2, 261–63, also 32–33. Many authors were similarly impressed by the fountains and aqueducts they saw in Islamic societies, regarding them as a technological speciality even of more backward peoples such as the Kurds: Kinneir, Journey through Asia Minor, Armenia, and Koordistan, 1818, 395.

131. E. D. Clarke, Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa, 1816–18, vol. 2, 145.

132. Pallas, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die südlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs, 1799–1801. On this see Wendland, Peter Simon Pallas, 1991, 272–73, 474–83.

133. Pallas, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die südlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs, 1799–1801, vol. 2, 360 (also 427, 440); Engelhardt and Parrott, Reise in die Krym und den Kaukasus, 1815, vol. 1, 29–30.

134. Pallas, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die südlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs, 1799–1801, vol. 2, 368.

135. Engelhardt and Parrott, Reise in die Krym und den Kaukasus, 1815, vol. 1, 30.

136. Engelhardt and Parrott, Reise in die Krym und den Kaukasus, 1815, vol. 1, 30.

137. Engelhardt and Parrott, Reise in die Krym und den Kaukasus, 1815, vol. 1, 33.

138. Engelhardt and Parrott, Reise in die Krym und den Kaukasus, 1815, vol. 1, 48.

139. For a nuanced and not overly critical view of the treatment of Crimea during the first years of Russian rule see Jobst, “Vision und Regime,” 2012, 215–21.

140. For a definition see Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World, 1984, 14.

141. Hausleutner, Geschichte der Araber in Sicilien, 1791–92, vol. 1, iii (preface).

142. Pallas, Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die Mongolischen Völkerschaften, 1776–1801, vol.1, see also Pallas, Reise durch die verschiedenen Provinzen des Rußischen Reiches, 1771–76, vol. 1, 307ff. (on the Kalmyks).

143. Bergmann, Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken in den Jahren, 1804–5, esp. vol. 2, entitled Die Kalmüken zwischen der Wolga und dem Don: Ein Sittengemählde. This charming and profound text would merit extensive discussion.

144. Bergmann, Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken in den Jahren, 1804–5, vol. 2, 66ff.

145. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, 379–99.

146. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 195–214.

147. Especially Burckhardt, Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, 1822; Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, 1829; Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, 1830. Burckhardt wrote his books in English. Other important descriptions of nomadic life in the Middle East are Jaubert, Voyage en Arménie et en Perse, 1821, 251ff.; Malcolm, History of Persia, 1829, vol. 2, 61–63, 325–34, 431–40; Elphinstone, Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, 1839, vol. 1, 302ff.

148. Timkovski, Voyage à Pekin, 1827, vol. 1, 13. More evidence on North Africa in Thomson, Barbary and Enlightenment, 1987, 103–4.

149. Valentia, Voyages and Travels to India, 1809, vol. 2, 354.

150. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, 379.

151. Thus Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 58; Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 10.

152. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, 380. As early as 1751 Turgot gave a similar analysis of rule in “small states”: “Plan du premier discours sur la formation des gouvernement et le mélange des nations,” in Turgot, Œuvres, 1913–23, vol. 1 (1913), 286.

153. An example in C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 292–93.

154. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, 382. A similar argument in Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 211: The Arabs did nothing but defend their legitimate position under international law. On nomads according to the European ius gentium see Fisch, Die europäische Expansion und das Völkerrecht, 1984, 275ff.

155. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 204; Pottinger, Travels in Belochistan and Sinde, 1816, 65–66.

156. On romantic and Victorian images of Arabs and Arabia see Tidrick, Heart-Beguiling Araby, 1989.

157. Falconer, Remarks, 1781, 321–52; Also of interest is Klaproth, Tableaux historiques de l’Asie, 1826, 233ff.

158. On Falconer’s place in the history of environmental thought, see Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, 1967, 601–5.

159. Falconer, Remarks, 1781, 334.

160. Falconer, Remarks, 1781, 336, 339–40.

161. Falconer, Remarks, 1781, 352.

162. Pocock, “Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall,’ ” 1977; Pocock, “Gibbon and the Shepherds,” 1981; these crisp articles have not been entirely superseded by Pocock’s much more extensive treatment in Barbarism and Religion, especially vol. 6, 2015, 255–64. Still useful are a few pages in Burrow, Gibbon, 1985, 67–79, and on Gibbon’s Eurasian take on the Middle Ages: Giarrizzo, Gibbon, 1954, 403ff.; Fowden, “Gibbon on Islam,” 2016, is excellent.

163. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 1, 1023–83.

164. Montesquieu already considered the proximity of les sauvages to nature as a curse rather than a blessing as it made them victims of climate and vegetation.

165. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 61.

166. For the nineteenth century, this is a major theme in C. A. Bayly, Birth of the Modern World, 2004, ch. 12.

167. Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire, 1971, 59.

168. For example Pastoret, Histoire de la législation, 1817–37, vol. 1, 22.

169. Heude, Voyage up the Persian Gulf, 1819, 36.

170. Roche, La France des Lumières, 1993, 64, 67.

171. Röttgers, Kants Kollege und seine ungeschriebene Schrift über die Zigeuner, 1993, 103.

172. Raffles, History of Java, 1817, 58.

173. Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, 1994, 123–31.

174. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 703.

175. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 18/2, in Œuvres complètes, 1949–51, vol. 2, 532.

176. A summary of this discourse in Rougemont, Précis d’ethnographie, 1835–37, vol. 1, 7–8. See also Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 115–16; Elphinstone, Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, 1839, vol. 2, 73ff.; Malte-Brun, Précis de la géographie universelle, 1812–29, vol. 2 (1812), 611.

177. See Olschki, Marco Polo’s Asia, 1960, 368–81; Daftary, Assassin Legends, 1994. Turgot mentions this case in 1748, pillorying it as an example of despotic superstition: Turgot, “Recherches sur les causes des progrès et de la décadence des sciences et des arts” [1748], in Turgot, Œuvres, 1913–23, vol. 1 (1913), 134.

178. Engels, “Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England,” 1957, 320–23.

179. Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, 1861–62, vol. 1, 1.

180. Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, 1861–62, vol. 1, 2.

CHAPTER X. REAL AND UNREAL DESPOTS

    1. Cranmer-Byng, An Embassy to China, 1962, 131. The journal was first published in 1908 in a truncated and imperfect edition. The full manuscript, kept in Tokyo, was only made accessible in J. L. Cranmer-Byng’s edition from which we quote.

    2. Matthew 6:29. Cranmer-Byng, An Embassy to China, 1962, 124. But Macartney does not quote directly from the Gospels. As we will soon see, he recalls a “puppet show” by the same name that he had seen in his childhood.

    3. Elphinstone, History of India, 1841, vol. 2, 61–62; Canetti, Masse und Macht, 1960, 488–500. Canetti calls him “the purest case of a paranoid ruler” (499). The assessment of a modern authority is more nuanced: Jackson, The Delhi Sultanate, 1999, 255–77. Jackson nicely notes that Muhammad’s regime became “the prisoner of its own reputation for harshness” (270).

    4. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 2 (1828), 65.

    5. Martini, De bello tatarico, 1654, 134ff.; Parsons, Peasant Rebellions, 1970, 176–82.

    6. Depending on the loyalties of the European observers: Manuzzi supported Aurangzeb in the succession struggle while Bernier took the side of the eventual loser, Aurangzeb’s brother Dara Shukoh.

    7. Knox, Historical Relation, 1681, 43–47.

    8. Cantemir, History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire, 1734–35, vol. 1, 249–51; an earlier source is Rycaut, History of the Turkish Empire, 1680, 89. An eyewitness account by the Venetian ambassador Pietro Foscarini from 1637 is quoted in Valensi, Venise et la Sublime Porte, 1987, 7–9. On the atrocities of Sultan Murad IV see in great detail Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 5 (1829), 187–88, 257–58, 283–94. Murad’s bloody score was surpassed by Sultan Mawlay Isma’il of Maroc (r. 1672–1727) who was credited by European observers with forty thousand murders that he had committed in person. See Allison, Crescent Obscured, 1995, 53.

    9. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 5 (1829), 658. The grand viziers of the Köprülü family—Mehmed (in office 1656–61), and his sons Fâzil Ahmed (1661–76) and Fâzil Mustafa (1689–91)—are usually portrayed in the accounts of contemporary European observers as highly competent, immune to corruption, and devoted to the public good.

  10. The tyrannical excesses of Shah Safi I were described by eyewitnesses like the German scholar and diplomat Adam Olearius. See his Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung, 1656, 654–62. The best European source is Du Mans, Estat de la Perse, 1890, 14ff., 151ff., a report for the minister Colbert that remained unpublished in its day; a new edition is Richard, Raphaël du Mans, 1995, vol. 2. The Capuchin Father Du Mans who spent decades at Isfahan was Engelbert Kaempfer’s teacher and friend and shared his knowledge with the younger scholar. Kaempfer himself, in his Latin report of 1712 (Am Hofe des persischen Großkönigs, 1940, 47–61), strove for a characteristically balanced assessment of Safi II, whom he met in person. Krusinski’s popular account (Revolution in Persia, 1728, vol. 1, 43–48, 54–58) was not based on first-hand knowledge. It presented both Safi shahs as uninhibited butchers. Modern authorities hardly paint a brighter picture, see Roemer, Persien, 1989, 330–31, 359–61.

  11. See the enthusiatic praise of both emperors from the pen of an author who otherwise was an avatar of the new “Sinophobia” of the 1790s: Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 412–14.

  12. W. Jones, “On the Second Classical Book of the Chinese,” in Works, 1807, vol. 4, 117.

  13. J. de Guignes, Histoire générale des Huns, 1756–58, vol. 3, 138–90. See also this authority’s finely balanced evaluation of the tyrannical first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi: vol. 1, pt. 1, 18–19.

  14. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 542.

  15. For example: Cantemir, History of the Ottoman Empire, 1734–35, vol. 1, 96, 172, 217, and Hammer-Purgstall, who devotes almost an entire volume to this great monarch: Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 3 (1828), as a summary: 488, 492ff.

  16. Mill, History of British India, 1817, vol. 1, 594–607.

  17. Orme, History of the Military Transactions, 1763–78, vol. 1, 18.

  18. Ruangsilp, Dutch East India Company Merchants, 2007, 143–47.

  19. Brougham, Political Philosophy, 1842–43, vol. 1, 131; Symes, Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, 1800, 6ff.

  20. Olearius, Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung, 1656, 335–42, esp. 339; Bietenholz, Pietro Della Valle, 1962, 188ff.; Roubaud, Histoire générale de l’Asie, 1770–72, vol. 2, 590ff.; Malcolm, History of Persia, 1829, vol. 2, 366–78. On possible good reasons for killing a crown prince see the reflections in Voltaire, “Histoire de l’Empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 47, 1999, 849–50.

  21. Cranmer-Byng, An Embassy to China, 1962, 124.

  22. Robertson, Progress of Society in Europe, 1972, 81, also 131.

  23. Wilks, Historical Sketches of the South of India, 1810–17, vol. 1, 22.

  24. Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China, 1967, 136–37, also 327.

  25. Turgot, “Recherches sur les causes des progrès et de la décadence des sciences et des arts” [1748], in Turgot, Œuvres, 1913–23, vol. 1 (1913), 124, points out that the most tender human being is transmogrified into a criminal once he slips into the role of a despot.

  26. Thus Dow, History of Hindostan, 1812, vol. 1, xiii.

  27. D’Ohsson, Tableau générale de l’Empire Othoman, 1787–1824, vol. 1, xxxii–xxiii. See also the strict distinction between system and operative politics in Guer, Mœurs et usages des Turcs, 1747, vol. 2, 355ff.

  28. Aristotle, Politics, 1967, 1285a 18–23, 249. As Hume or Gibbon might have added: What used to be character turned into habit.

  29. On the origins of an East-West dichotomy see Springborg, Western Republicanism, 1992, 23ff.; on Greek views of Indian politics: Embree, “Oriental Despotism,” 1971, 255–64.

  30. Examples in D. Forbes, Hume’s Philosophical Politics, 1975, 142–45, 150, 155ff.

  31. Hume, History of England, 1983, vol. 4, 360.

  32. Hume, History of England, 1983, vol. 4, 346. The wider context of these remarks is Hume’s analysis of “Tudor despotism.” See James Harris, Hume, 2015, 368–87.

  33. See Mandt, “Tyrannis, Despotie,” 1990, 672–76; still unsurpassed: Koebner, “Despot and Despotism,” 1951.

  34. Valensi, Venise et la Sublime Porte, 1987, 97–99; Valensi, “The Making of a Political Paradigm,” 1990, 191ff.

  35. On the topic of oriental despotism in seventeenth-century travel literature see Grosrichard, The Sultan’s Court, 1998, chs. 1–2; Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production, 1975, 19–28, as well as (partly based on Krader) O’Leary, The Asiatic Mode of Production, 1989, 51–58.

  36. Shackleton, Essays on Montesquieu, 1988, 483. There is a rich literature on Montesquieu’s concept of despotism. A classic is Richter, The Political Theory of Montesquieu, 1977, 45–50, 71, 77ff. On oriental despotism in Montesquieu see Curtis, Orientalism and Islam, 2009, 72–102. See also Young, “Montesquieu’s View of Despotism,” 1978.

  37. Montesquieu, “Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence,” ch. 14, in Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu, vol. 2 (2000), 193–98. Montesquieu cites Paul Rycaut’s 1668 description of Turkey as his source for this assertion (in the French edition of 1678).

  38. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 5/14, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 294–95; Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 61.

  39. “La partie du monde où le despotisme est, pour ainsi dire, naturalisé, qui est l’Asie.” Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 5/14, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 296; Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 63.

  40. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 18/19, in Œuvres complètes, 1949–51, vol. 2, 365; also 17/6, vol. 2, 529.

  41. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 17/3, in Œuvres complètes, 1949–51, vol. 2, 524–26.

  42. On Montesquieu as a methodologist of the “ideal type” see Cassirer, Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 1951, 210–12.

  43. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 3/9, in Œuvres complètes, 1949–51, vol. 2, 259; Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 28.

  44. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 5/11, in Œuvres complètes, 1949–51, vol. 2, 290–91; Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 57.

  45. An example is the Baron de Tott who spent the years 1769 to 1774 as a military advisor in the Ottoman Empire. On Montesquieu’s influence on him see Çırakman, From the “Terror of the World” to the “Sick Man of Europe,” 2002, 141–45.

  46. My 1998 thesis of a highly selective reading of Chardin by Montesquieu has later been supported by a historical sociologist: “In his thousands of pages, Chardin had offered a wealth of other accurate information about Iranian society that Montesquieu found no use for.” Arjomand, “Coffeehouses, Guilds and Oriental Despotism,” 2004, 30.

  47. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 289.

  48. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 295–96.

  49. See Dubos, Reflexions, 1719, vol. 2, 192: The tyranny of Roman emperors was only aimed at the elite, never at the people.

  50. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 2/5, in Œuvres complètes, 1949–51, vol. 2, 249; Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 20. That this is true for all despots was a long-lived claim with evidence ranging from Tavernier, Nouvelle relation, 1675, 226, to D. Stewart, “Lectures on Political Economy” [1809–10], in Collected Works, 1854–60, vol. 8 (1855), 390.

  51. One example among many: Bruin, Voyages, 1718, vol. 1, 208.

  52. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 296–99, 314; Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 5/14, in Œuvres complètes, 1949–51, vol. 2, 295–96.

  53. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 98–102, 330–36, 390–93. On the much-underrated political theory that Justi developed in many other works see Adam, The Political Economy of J.H.G. Justi, 2006, 93–141.

  54. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 313–14; Bruin, Voyages, 1718, 206–7.

  55. Robertson, Progress of Society in Europe, 1972, 11.

  56. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 322.

  57. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 204. A similar thought had been uttered a few decades earlier by Sir Thomas Roe, an English ambassador to the Mughal court.

  58. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 5/14, in Œuvres complètes, 1949–51, vol. 2, 294.

  59. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 339–40, 344–49. See also Kaempfer, Am Hofe des persischen Großkönigs, 1940, 89–95.

  60. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 343–44.

  61. Esp. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 368.

  62. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 368.

  63. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 369, on religious tolerance in Persia (that did not, however, apply to the Christian mission) see 426ff.

  64. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 369.

  65. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1735, vol. 3, 415, 420–21.

  66. Montesquieu, “Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence,” ch. 22, in Œuvres complètes, 1949–51, vol. 2, 202; Montesquieu, Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans, 1882, 460.

  67. A magisterial survey of the issue of “oriental despotism” up to Montesquieu is Rubiés, “Oriental Despotism and European Orientalism,” 2005.

  68. Lavie, Des corps politiques et de leur gouvernements, 1764, vol. 1, 228.

  69. Venturi, L’antichità svelata, 1947, 29.

  70. Boulanger, “Recherches sur les origines du despotisme oriental” [1761], in Œuvres, 1794, vol. 3, 1–182; summarized in “Essai philosophique sur le gouvernmement,” in Œuvres, 1794, vol. 3, 215–16, 224–27, 229, 236.

  71. See the “Lettre de l’auteur à M. *** [Helvétius],” composed by friends of the deceased philosopher and appended to the first edition of his Recherches (Œuvres, vol. 3, 1–9). On the letter see Venturi, L’antichità svelata, 1947, 66ff.

  72. Wilks, Historical Sketches of the South of India, 1810–17, vol. 1, 25, 29.

  73. Turgot, “Plan du premier discours sur la formation des gouvernements et le mélange des nations,” in Turgot, Œuvres, 1913–23, vol. 1 (1913), 290–94. Many resonances of Turgot’s interpretation of despotism in the context of a theory of the emergence of the state can be found in the 1790s in Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 12–14, 66–70, and also in Heeren’s description of ancient Iran: 440ff.

  74. The figure of the prime minister under a despotic regime was a source of particular fascination to Europeans. See, e.g., Thévenot, Travels, 1687, vol. 1, 63–65; Pitton de Tournefort, Relation, 1717, vol. 2, 24–27; Universal History, 1779–84, vol. 37, 27–28.

  75. Turgot, “Plan du premier discours sur la formation des gouvernements et le mélange des nations,” in Turgot, Œuvres, 1913–23, vol. 1 (1913), 294; English translation in D. Gordon, The Turgot Collection, 2011, 368. On propaganda and brainwashing in despotism, see D. Stewart, “Lectures,” in Collected Works, 1854–58, vol. 8, 395ff.

  76. In 1792 despotism is then reduced by the influential British-Indian colonial politician Charles Grant to the predominance of a heathen religion in the minds of the populace: Embree, Charles Grant, 1962, 146.

  77. Condorcet, Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain, 1988, 120; Condorcet, Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind, 1796, 60.

  78. Walckenaer, Essai sur l’histoire de l’espèce humaine, 1798, 278–79.

  79. Virey, Histoire naturelle du genre humain, 1824, vol. 3, 225. Rycaut already makes a very similar argument, Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 1668, 3.

  80. Linguet, Du plus heureux gouvernement, 1774, vol. 1, 10, 12.

  81. Linguet, Du plus heureux gouvernement, 1774, vol. 1, 18

  82. Linguet, Du plus heureux gouvernement, 1774, vol. 1, 22–23.

  83. Linguet, Du plus heureux gouvernement, 1774, vol. 1, 34.

  84. Crawfurd, Indian Archipelago, 1820, vol. 3, 11.

  85. Crawfurd, Indian Archipelago, 1820, vol. 3, 26.

  86. Malcolm, History of Persia, 1829, vol. 1, 379ff., 384–85; vol. 2, 2, 41; also Poivre, “Voyage de Pierre Poivre en Cochinchine,” 1885, 473–74; Grose, A Voyage to the East Indies, 1772, vol. 1, 85–86; Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 79, 81; Ferrières-Sauvebœuf, Mémoires historiques, 1790, vol. 1, iii–iv; Ramsay, An Essay upon Civil Government, 1732, iv (and passim).

  87. For example, Tennant, Thoughts on the Effects of the British Government, 1807, 76ff.

  88. See Laurens, Les origines intellectuels, 1987, 67–78. A slightly different reading of Volney from my own is to be found in Harvey, The French Enlightenment and Its Others, 2012, 187–91.

  89. Volney, “Les ruines, ou méditation sur les révolutions des empires,” in Volney, Œuvres, 1989–98, vol. 1, 217–18.

  90. A very similar analysis made in a different context is Turpin, Histoire civile et naturelle du royaume de Siam, 1771, vol. 1, 79ff., 103ff.

  91. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 114.

  92. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 400–406. Against Montesquieu’s coupling of despotism and climate, see the summary account in Murray, Enquiries Historical and Moral, 1808, 139–48.

  93. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 361ff.

  94. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 395, 397–98.

  95. Ferguson, Essay on the History of Civil Society, 1966, 270. Similarly Malte-Brun, Précis de la géographie universelle, 1812–29, vol. 2 (1812), 596.

  96. Meiners, Betrachtungen, 1795–96, vol. 1, 37, 172.

  97. Hennings here implies close parallels between enfeoffed feudal lords in Europe and in India.

  98. Hennings, Gegenwärtiger Zustand, 1784–86, vol. 1, 12–13.

  99. Barrow, A Voyage to Cochin China, 1806, 333; Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China, 1967, 487.

100. T. B. Clarke, Publicistical Survey, 1791, 8.

101. T. B. Clarke, Publicistical Survey, 1791, 8.

102. Durchläuchtige Welt, 1710–11, vol. 3 (pt. 7), 16, 48, 72–73, 86–87.

103. Symes, An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, 1800, 176.

104. Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 141–45.

105. Castilhon, Considérations, 1769, 244–45; Thunberg, Reise durch einen Theil von Europa, Afrika und Asien, 1794, vol. 2, pt. 2, 18.

106. Pinkerton, Modern Geography, 1807, vol. 2, 184.

107. G. Forster, A Journey from Bengal to England, 1808, vol. 1, 328ff.; Malcolm, “Sketch of the Sikhs,” 1810, 240; Wilks, Historical Sketches of the South of India, 1810–17, vol. 1, 28. More on interpretations of Sikh politics in Khurana, British Historiography on the Sikh Power, 1985, chs. 1–2. Georgi portrays the political system of the Kyrgyz people as democratic: Beschreibung aller Nationen des Rußischen Reichs (1776–80), vol. 2, 216–17.

108. Voltaire, “Commentaire sur L’Esprit des lois” [1777], in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 80B, 2009, 339.

109. Voltaire, “Supplément au siècle de Louis XIV” [1753], in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 32C, 2012, 334–35. See also Richter, “Despotism,” 1973, 1–11.

110. Richardson, Dissertation on the Languages, Literature and Manners of Eastern Nations, 1778, pt. 2, 151–52, also 353, 365. For India see Orme, Historic Fragments of the Mogul Empire, 1974, 255: The greater the spatial distance towards the court, the weaker the despot’s power.

111. For an extensive discussion see Whelan, “Oriental Despotism,” 2001.

112. On his biography see Schwab, Vie d’Anquetil-Duperron, 1934. Anquetil’s significance for the debate on despotism was powerfully pointed out by Franco Venturi: “Oriental Despotism,” 1963, 136–41; important is Stuurman, “Cosmopolitan Egalitarianism,” 2007. The place of Anquetil-Duperron within the various polemics of his time—with William Robertson, Cornelius de Pauw, the abbé Raynal, and others—is carefully outlined in Imbruglia, “Tra Anquetil-Duperron et ‘L’Histoire des deux Indes,’ ” 1994.

113. Anquetil-Duperron, Législation orientale, 1778, vi.

114. Schwab, Oriental Renaissance, 1984, 17.

115. Anquetil-Duperron, L’Inde en rapport avec l’Europe, 1798, vol. 1, viii.

116. Kaiser, “The Evil Empire?,” 2000, 17. In terms of international politics, this group favored close relations between France and the Ottoman Empire.

117. One could even follow Stuurman and regard Anquetil-Duperron as a global thinker dedicated to “a life-long defense of the equality and dignity of non-European peoples, from India to the Americas and the Arctic zone.” Stuurman, “Cosmopolitan Egalitarianism,” 2007, 256.

118. Anquetil-Duperron, Législation orientale, 1778, “Dédicace.”

119. Anquetil-Duperron, Législation orientale, 1778, 1.

120. Anquetil-Duperron, Législation orientale, 1778, 45. Anquetil’s chief authorities are Chardin for Iran and Sir James Porter for the Ottoman Empire; for Mughal India that he knew very well, he relied on sources in Persian, the official language of the Mughal Empire; see, for example, 41–42, 193–209.

121. Anquetil-Duperron, Législation orientale, 1778, 16.

122. Anquetil-Duperron, Législation orientale, 1778, 179–80.

123. Anquetil-Duperron, Législation orientale, 1778, 200.

124. Anquetil-Duperron, Législation orientale, 1778, 18, 31–32, 175–77, 212ff.

125. Anquetil-Duperron, Législation orientale, 1778, 32.

126. On the French (non-)reception of Anquetil-Duperron see Imbruglia, “Despotisme et féodalité” 1995, 108–11.

127. Meiners, Grundriß der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1793, 204–19.

128. Brougham, Political Philosophy, 1842–43, vol. 1, 102, 105, 108, 119.

129. Guha, Rule of Property, 1963, on Rouse: 50–60; Minuti, “Proprietà della terra,” 1978, 103–23.

130. Rouse, Dissertation, 1791, 20.

131. Rouse, Dissertation, 1791, 77.

132. Rouse, Dissertation, 1791, 91–93, 95, 107–9.

133. Rouse, Dissertation, 1791, 180.

134. This is a weaker formulation than the one used in the German original of this book. I gratefully accept the critique in Tzoref-Ashkenazi, “Romantic Attitudes toward Oriental Despotism,” 2013, 280, 318.

135. See Syndram, Thron des Großmoguls, 1996.

136. Plant, Handbuch einer vollständigen Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte Polynesiens, 1792–99, vol. 1, 130–31; similar remarks in Raffles, History of Java, 1817, vol. 1, 65–66, 76, 151, 266ff.; Tombe, Voyage aux Indes Orientales, 1810, vol. 1, 213; Percival, Account of the Island of Ceylon, 1805, 192, 199–200, 280, 363.

137. Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 351.

138. Anquetil-Duperron, L’Inde en rapport avec l’Europe, 1798, vol. 1, iii; Sonnerat, Voyages aux Indes Orientales, 1782, vol. 2, 18; Langlès, Monuments anciens et modernes de l’Hindoustan, 1821, vol. 1, 19, also 268.

139. Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 29ff., 430–51.

140. See Marshall, “Introduction,” India: Madras and Bengal, 1981, 23ff.; Marshall, “Introduction,” in Burke, India: The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment, 1991, 31ff., and numerous remarks on Burke’s views on many different kind of despotism in Whelan, Edmund Burke and India, 1996, esp. 230–42.

141. Whelan, Edmund Burke and India, 242–60. Whelan points out parallels between Burke and Voltaire (246).

142. Quoted in Marshall, Impeachment of Warren Hastings, 1965, 21.

143. Embree, Imagining India, 1989, 31.

144. Valentia, Voyages and Travels to India, 1809, vol. 1, 235–36.

145. See Jain, Outlines of Indian Legal History, 1966, 193ff.

146. McLaren, “From Analysis to Prescription,” 1993, 470; for a different view: Stein, Thomas Munro, 1989, 218ff.; the military character of this concept is emphasized by Peers, Between Mars and Mammon, 1995, 44ff.

147. Zastoupil, John Stuart Mill and India, 1994, 26. See also Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India, 1959; Majeed, Ungoverned Imaginings, 1992, 144–45.

148. This was already understood by early modern commentators. See for example Palafox y Mendoza, History of the Conquest of China, 1676, 480–81; d’Orléans, Histoire des deux conquerans tartares, 1690; Universal History, 1779–84, vol. 7, 141–42.

149. Martini (Histoire de la Chine, 1692, vol. 1, 134–43) mentions a semimythical ruler Kieu (probably King Jie, traditionally 1728–1675 BCE, the last king of the Xia dynasty) who is described as a kind of Nero-like monster.

150. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 144ff. Justi took much of his material from Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, esp. vol. 1, 436–42. Justi has long been overlooked as a commentator on China, but see now Jacobsen, “Limits to Despotism,” 2013, 367–70, and 384–85 on Justi’s influence on Catherine the Great, 382 on that of his pupil Joseph von Sonnenfels on the Habsburg emperor Joseph II.

151. Appleton, A Cycle of Cathay, 1951, 63; Guy, French Image of China, 1963; Étiemble, L’Europe chinoise, 1989.

152. This is an interpretation already developed by Matteo Ricci, the founder of the Jesuit mission in China, who watched at close distance the less-than-autocratic political style of the Wan Li emperor (r. 1573–1620). The same view was explained at length in a popular book authored by the French Orientalist and royal historiographer to Louis XIII, Michel Baudier: Histoire de la cour du roy de la Chine, 1624, later much anthologized, for instance in Osborne, Collection of Voyages and Travels, 1745, vol. 2, 1–24 (esp. 11–13). A similar idea in Temple, “Of Heroic Virtue” (1694), in Works, 1814, vol. 3, 337.

153. Le Comte, Nouveaux Mémoires sur l’état present de la Chine, 1697, vol. 2, 1–92.

154. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 1, 120, also vol. 2, 9–11.

155. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 2, 12, 22; vol. 3, 128ff. The most important Jesuit writings on political patriarchalism were collected in Mémoires concernant l’histoire … des Chinois, 1776–1814, vol. 4 (1779), a kind of themed issue. Hegel later put this argument at the center of his interpretation of China.

156. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 1, 120.

157. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 2, 255ff. See also Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 2, 359ff., vol. 24, 125–35. The examination system in Tonking (Northern Vietnam) was organized along the Chinese model: Tissanier, Relation du Voyage, 1663, 122ff.

158. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 1, 120; vol. 2, 38; also Clerc, Yu Le Grand et Confucius, 1769, 419.

159. See, for example, Sangermano, Description of the Burmese Empire, 1885, 74ff.

160. Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 23 (1781), 164ff.

161. Pauw, Recherches philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois, 1773, vol. 2, 330–31; Meiners, Betrachtungen, 1795–96, vol. 2, 158, 210ff.

162. All these idealizing motives are somewhat naively summarized in Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 89–98; later in that work, the assessment becomes more realistic and critical: 563–64.

163. An exception in taking this issue seriously and discussing it a length is Patton, Principles of Asiatic Monarchies, 1801, 217ff.

164. Teng, “Chinese Influence on the Western Examination System,” 1942–43.

165. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 19/17–20, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 567–71.

166. Grosier, Description générale de la Chine, 1785, 509–22; Grosier, De la Chine, 1818–20, vol. 5, 209–69; also several artikel by Père Joseph Amiot in Mémoires concernant l’histoire … des Chinois, 1776–1814, vol. 6 (1780), 331ff.; vol. 8 (1782), 220ff.

167. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 392, 395, 397–98.

168. Cranmer-Byng, An Embassy to China, 1962, 238–39.

169. Grosier attacks him vehemently: De la Chine, 1818–20, vol. 1, xiv et seq. Grosier’s opus maximum is the final word on China in the Jesuit tradition but its basic lines of interpretation had already been developed in the shorter first edition of 1785.

170. C.L.J. de Guignes, Voyages à Peking, 1808, vol. 2, 432.

171. C.L.J. de Guignes, Voyages à Peking, 1808, vol. 2, 450.

172. Volney, Considérations, 1788, summarized in Gaulmier, L’idéologue Volney, 1951, 126–32. See also Deneys, “Le récit de l’histoire selon Volney,” 1989, 52–53.

173. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 361.

174. Peyssonnell, Examen, 1788, 98–100.

175. Peyssonnell, Examen, 1788, 251–52.

176. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 11/6, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 397, adds: it is exactly like that in Venice.

177. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, 2011, 226; Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Berlin 1822/1823, 1996, 135.

178. Voltaire, “Essai sur les mœurs,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 26C, 2015, 260; in this assessment Voltaire follows the authority of Cantemir’s History of the Ottoman Empire. A similar assessment is given in Pitton de Tournefort, Relation, 1717, vol. 2, 4; see also Gibbon’s comment on the modernity of the early Janissaries: Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 817–18. During the eighteenth century, however, says Eton (Survey of the Turkish Empire, 1801, 28), the sultans had disciplined the Janissaries so harshly as to undermine the empire’s military capability.

179. Robertson, Progress of Society in Europe, 1972, 147.

180. So too Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 5 (1829), 552.

181. J. Porter, Observations, 1768, vol. 1, 84.

182. J. Porter, Observations, 1768, vol. 1, 107.

183. D’Ohsson, Tableau générale de l’Empire Othoman, 1788–24, esp. vol. 5; Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reiches Staatsverfassung, 1815.

184. Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 1, 89.

185. On Selim III and his age see S. J. Shaw, Between Old and New, 1971.

186. D’Ohsson, Tableau générale de l’Empire Othoman, 1788–1824, vol. 1, xxxiii; Dallaway, Constantinopel Ancient and Modern, 1797, 43. On the European fear of an “Ottoman Peter the Great” see Laurens, Les origines intellectuels, 1987, 173.

187. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 1974, vol. 3, 216.

188. Gibbon’s views on despotism—Imperial Roman, Byzantine, and oriental—are a huge topic that cannot be dealt with adequately here. The key text is Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 1, esp. chs. 3 and 7.

189. “On Asiatick History, Civil and Natural,” in W. Jones, Works, 1807, vol. 3, 215.

CHAPTER XI. SOCIETIES

    1. First published in 1822, ten years after Titsingh’s death, as an English translation from his French manuscripts. Quoted from a modern edition: Titsingh, Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns, 2006, 174.

    2. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 19/4, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 558; Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 310.

    3. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 19/16, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 566; Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 317.

    4. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 19/18, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 568.

    5. A careful explanation of Montesquieu’s terminology is found in Binoche, Introduction, 1998.

    6. For example: Francisci, Ost- und West-Indischer wie auch Sinesischer Lust- und Stats-Garten, 1668; Francisci, Neu-polirter Geschicht- Kunst- und Sitten-Spiegel ausländischer Völcker, 1670; Dharampal-Frick, Indien im Spiegel deutscher Quellen, 1994, 76–85; Kames, Sketches of the History of Man, 1778, vols. 1 and 2. Démeunier (L’esprit des usages et des coutumes, 1776) basically also belongs to this type of collector and arranger of vast amounts of material and Marvin Harris overstates his case when he calls him “possibly the greatest ethnographer of the eighteenth century” (Rise of Anthropological Theory, 1968, 17).

    7. Riedel, “Gesellschaft, Gemeinschaft,” 1975, 808.

    8. M. Harbsmeier, Wilde Völkerkunde, 1994.

    9. Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production, 1975.

  10. Krusenstern, Voyage round the World, 1813, vol. 1, 324.

  11. Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, 1839, vol. 1, 74–76. Similarly on Bukhara: Burnes, Travels into Bokhara, 1834, vol. 1, 272ff. A rich and colorful text is also Joseph Rehmann’s recollection of the fair at Makariev on the river Volga that he visited in 1805: Heissig, Mongoleireise zur späten Goethezeit, 1971, 99–121.

  12. S. Anderson, An English Consul in Turkey, 1989, 7.

  13. A. Hamilton, New Account of the East Indies, 1930, vol. 1, 48–49; S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, 1800, 72.

  14. Le Comte, Nouveaux Mémoires sur l’état present de la Chine, 1697, vol. 1, 130–33.

  15. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 1, 109. Plenty of material in support of this thesis can be found in Nieuhof, An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, 1669.

  16. Kaempfer, Geschichte und Beschreibung Japans, 1777–79, vol. 1, 37; Kaempfer, Engelbert Kaempfer in Siam, 2003, 232; Baker, et al., Van Vliet’s Siam, 2005, 1–20.

  17. Justi, who draws on some of these sources, believed public order in Asian cities to be far superior to that in Europe: Vergleichungen, 1762, 255ff.

  18. Chardin, Voyages, 1735, vol. 2, 1–120; Delisle and Pingré, Description de la ville de Peking, 1765, 7ff.

  19. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 239–40.

  20. S. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Rußland zur Untersuchung der drey Natur-Reiche, 1770–84, vol. 2, 43ff.

  21. Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 186.

  22. Poivre, Un manuscrit inédit de Pierre Poivre, 1968, 33.

  23. Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 186.

  24. Graaff, Oost-Indise spiegel, 2010, 69–82; on the author and his text see Barend-van Haeften, Oost-Indïe gespiegeld, 1992, 131ff.; also Poivre, Un manuscrit inédit de Pierre Poivre, 1968, 40–41. A survey of reports on Batavia in the seventeenth century is Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making Europe, 1993, 1313–22; see also M. Harbsmeier, Wilde Völkerkunde, 1994, 199–209. A modern social history of Batavia in the (late) eighteenth century is Taylor, Social World of Batavia, 2009, 33–77.

  25. Graaff, Oost-Indise spiegel, 2010, 106.

  26. Beaglehole, Life of Captain James Cook, 1974, 257–64. A basic condition of Batavian society was indeed the extreme unhealthiness of the place. See in great detail: Van der Brug, Malaria en malaise, 1994, esp. 55–67.

  27. Similar: G. L. Staunton, Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, 1797, vol. 1, 242.

  28. G. L. Staunton, Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, 1797, vol. 1, 260–61. Slightly less critical is a traveler who visited Batavia a few years earlier: Thunberg, Reise durch einen Theil von Europa, Afrika und Asien, 1794, vol. 1, pt. 2, 203–12.

  29. G. L. Staunton, Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, 1797, vol. 1, 260. See also Barrow, Voyage to Cochin China, 1806, 202–42.

  30. The comprehensive description and depiction of Chinese everyday life in Breton de la Martinière, La Chine en miniature (1811–12), was not based on first-hand knowledge but drew on material collected by the French statesman and Sinophile Bertin. See Sacy, Henri Bertin, 1970.

  31. See, for example, Raymond, Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle, 1973, esp. vol. 2, 373–415, on the social structure of Cairo. See also Boyar and Fleet, A Social History of Ottoman Istanbul, 2010.

  32. When the German original of this book was published in 1998, there was very little interest in the Russell brothers. Now we have a magnificently illiustrated monograph: Boogert, Aleppo Observed, 2010. Readers with less patience should turn to Boogert, “Patrick Russell and the Republic of Letters in Aleppo,” 2005, or Starkey, “No Myopic Mirage,” 2002. Another Western source on Aleppo that would merit a detailed comparison with the work of the Russell brothers is Seetzen, Tagebuch des Aufenthalts in Aleppo 1803–1805, 2011. Seetzen repeatedly refers to the Natural History of Aleppo. See also Braune, “Ulrich Jasper Seetzens Leben in der Community der Franken in Aleppo,” 2014.

  33. However, this remained the only full translation of the work in any language. Boogert, Aleppo Observed, 2010, 18.

  34. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, xvii.

  35. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, xii, also 108–9 (on fashions in the Orient).

  36. See in vol. 2 the analysis of the various plague epidemics since 1719, the administrative and medicinal measures taken to combat them, and their accompanying social symptoms (Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 2, 335ff.). As an early sociological analysis of catastrophe, the Russells’ account is rivaled only by Alexander von Humboldt’s investigation into the earthquake of Caracas (Relation Historique, 1814–25, vol. 2, 1–28).

  37. Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, 1989, 339, gives a figure of around 110,000 for the mid-eighteenth century. It would be intriguing to compare Russell’s social portrait with Marcus’s similar undertaking over two centuries later. On Aleppo’s contacts with the outside world, see Masters, Origins of Western Economic Dominance, 1988. Boogert gives an excellent paraphrase of the Russells’ work on the town of Aleppo and on Ottoman society: Aleppo Observed, 2010, 83–97, 185–230.

  38. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 2, 3.

  39. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 99, 147–48.

  40. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 214, 216–17, 222–23.

  41. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 141.

  42. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 181.

  43. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 126–27.

  44. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 131ff.

  45. Montagu, Complete Letters, 1965–67, vol. 1, 312–14.

  46. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 137.

  47. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 177.

  48. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 223–24.

  49. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 225–26.

  50. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 226.

  51. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 229, also 316ff.

  52. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 325. Compare Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, 1989, ch. 3.

  53. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 327.

  54. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 327

  55. Montagu, Complete Letters, 1965–67. Lady Mary lived in the Ottoman Empire from 1717–18.

  56. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 230.

  57. Göçek, East Encounters West, 1987, 66–67.

  58. Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 1, 291.

  59. A. Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence, 1978, 191.

  60. Millar, Origins of the Distinction of Ranks, 2006, 245.

  61. See stories of punishment and torture that recall the horrors of the Caribbean in Vogel, Zehn-Jährige, Jetzo auffs neue revidirt und vermehrte Ost-Indianische Reise-Beschreibung, 1716, 105, 117; Barchewitz, Reisebeschreibung, 1730, 612; Stavorinus, Reise nach dem Vorgebirge der Guten Hoffnung, 1796, 203. Yet Raffles, who estimates that there were nineteen thousand slaves in Batavia in 1814, emphasizes that they were better treated than slaves in the European colonies in the West Indies (History of Java, 1817, vol. 1, 76–78). See also Wurtzburg, Raffles, 1954, 264–67, with excerpts from other reports by Raffles.

  62. On the history of this trade see already Sprengel, Ursprung des Negerhandels, 1779, 11ff. More detailed contemporary information on the origin and employment of these black eunuchs can be found in Rycaut, Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 1668, 35–37; Tavernier, Nouvelle relation, 1675, 17–19, and also (with the physician’s clinical gaze) in Fryer, A New Account of East India and Persia, 1909–15, vol. 3, 125–26; a summary in Hammer-Purgstall, Des osmanischen Reiches Staatsverfassung, 1815, vol. 2, 63ff. European observers were less interested in other forms of slavery in the Ottoman Empire.

  63. There is a good summary of early nineteenth-century information and evaluation in the anonymous article, “On Slavery in the East,” Asiatic Journal, vol. 23 (January–June 1827).

  64. Meiners, Grundriß der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1793, 230–31.

  65. Turgot, “Reflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses,” in Turgot, Œuvres, 1913–23, vol. 2 (1914), 547–48.

  66. A. Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence, 1978, 182, 185–87; A. Smith, Wealth of Nations, 1976, vol. 1, 387; vol. 2, 587.

  67. Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, 1820, vol. 3, 27.

  68. La Loubère, A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam, 1693, vol. 1, 77. Most but not all free subjects in Siam did indeed have to perform such labor service for up to six months a year. Owen, Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia, 2005, 26.

  69. For the eighteenth century see Hathaway, The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt, 1997. On all aspects see Philipp and Haarmann, The Mamluks in Egyptian Politics and Society, 1998, on the eighteenth century esp. 114–16, 118–49, 196–204.

  70. Voltaire, “Essai sur les mœurs,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 23A (2013), 347–49; Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 860–61, above all Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 71–77, 101–9.

  71. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 73. This accords with the findings of modern research, e.g., Crecelius, “Mamluk Beylicate of Egypt,” 1998, 128–29. Whereas Volney developed a kind of leadership sociology of the late Mamluk period, Pococke (Description of the East, 1743–45, vol. 1, 161–85) had submitted the problem of Egyptian governance to a proto-politological analysis from an Ottoman viewpoint. See also Bergk, Aegypten, 1799, 291–317.

  72. Wakefield, The Traveller in Asia, 1817, 229.

  73. Semedo (The History of that Great and Renowned Monarchy of China, 1655, 35–45) described the system fairly accurately, while Navarette realistically pointed out its dark side: Navarette “An Account of the Empire of China,” 1744, 51–52; Navarette, Travels and Controversies, 1962, vol. 1, 153. The standard reference is Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations, 2000.

  74. This striking parallel between the Chinese and the Roman Catholic hierarchy as career elevators is made by Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 2, 58.

  75. See Duteil, Le mandat du ciel, 1994, 232–50.

  76. Semedo, The History of that Great and Renowned Monarchy of China, 1655, 46, 121–23; somewhat less euphorically Magalhães, A New History of China, 1688, 145–48; similar too is Winterbotham, An Historical, Geographical, and Philosophical View of the Chinese Empire, 1795, 268.

  77. Denckwürdige Beschreibung, 1679, 7.

  78. Mendoza, History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China, 1853–54, vol. 1, 125.

  79. Le Comte, Nouveaux mémoires sur l’état present de la Chine, 1697, vol. 12, 51. A fine sociological analysis in this sense is undertaken by C.L.J. de Guignes, Voyages à Peking, 1808, vol. 2, 412ff.

  80. Justi, Vergleichungen, 1762, 413ff.; Quesnay, “Despotisme de la Chine,” 1888, 620–21.

  81. Thus Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy from the Governor General of India to the Court of Ava, 1834, vol. 2, 161–62.

  82. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 386.

  83. Universal History, 1779–84, vol. 7, 135, 137, 145; Sonnerat, Voyages aux Indes Orientales, 1782, vol. 2, 20; an interesting analysis is found in C.L.J. de Guignes, Voyages à Peking, 1808, vol. 2, 434ff. De Guignes is still yet to receive the attention he deserves.

  84. Even Barrow was aware of this: Some Account of the Public Life … of the Earl of Macartney, 1807, vol. 1, vii–viii, 67ff.; on the theme of corruption in the Hastings trial, see Marshall, Impeachment of Warren Hastings, 1965, 130ff.; Whelan, Edmund Burke and India, 1996, 64–122.

  85. Universal History, 1779, vol. 7, 136.

  86. Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 22, 132ff. See also Mairan, Lettres de M. de Mairan au R. P. Parennin, 1759, 78.

  87. Georg Hassel ventures a fine analysis of China’s “different estates” on the basis of a similar stratified model in Gaspari, Vollständiges Handbuch, vol. 15 (1822), 65–69. See also the paraphrase of Louis-François Jauffret’s ethnographic analysis of China (c. 1800) in Moravia, La scienza dell’uomo nel Settecento, 1978, 79–82.

  88. Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 22, 158.

  89. Silhouette, Idée générale, 1731, 18.

  90. Poivre, Voyages d’un philosophe, 1768, 106–19.

  91. Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe, 1999, 223. The novel in question was “Yü-kiau-li [Yu Jiao Li] ou les deux cousines,” published in 1826. Friedrich Schlegel’s response to the translation around the same time was very similar: Schlegel, “Philosophie der Geschichte,” 1971, 63–64.

  92. Tissanier, Relation du Voyage, 1663, 121; Maybon, La relation sur le Tonkin, 1920, 149ff.

  93. A. Hamilton, New Account of the East Indies, 1930, vol. 2, 26.

  94. Gervaise, Natural and Political History of Siam, 1928, 50.

  95. Chardin, Voyages, 1735, vol. 3, 312; Fryer, A New Account of East India and Persia, 1909–15, vol. 3, 133.

  96. Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, 1820, vol. 3, 31ff.

  97. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 9, xli.

  98. Busbecq, Turkish Letters, 1927, 60.

  99. Guer, Mœurs et usages des Turcs, 1747, vol. 2, 393, and 389–96; also de Tott, Memoirs, 1786, vol. 1, xxv–xxvi; Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 1, 4–5.

100. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 860–62, 946.

101. “Une classe héréditaire qui est chargé exclusivement d’un genre d’occupation.” Malte-Brun, Précis de la géographie universelle, 1812–29, vol. 2 (1812), 599.

102. Rougemont, Précis d’ethnographie, 1835–37, vol. 1, 21.

103. Documents on the early Western perception and construction of “Hinduism” are collected in Marshall, The British Discovery of Hinduism, 1970.

104. See Dharampal-Frick, Indien im Spiegel deutscher Quellen, 1994, 95–108.

105. The following is based on Dharampal-Frick, Indien im Spiegel deutscher Quellen, 1994, 228–42; Dharampal-Frick, “Shifting Categories in the Discourse on Caste,” 1995, 92–97. See also chapter 3 in the present book. Susan Bayly’s great work on castes gives a detailed account of European and Indian views of caste in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but has little to say about our period: S. Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India, 1999, 97–186.

106. Dharampal-Frick, Indien im Spiegel deutscher Quellen, 1994, 236.

107. See also Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production, 1975, 75–79, for early ideas about open and closed societies.

108. “Un certain honneur que des préjugés de religion établissent aux Indes, fait que les diverses castes ont horreur les unes des autres.” Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 24/22, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 731. Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 474.

109. “peuplée de vingt nations différentes, dont les mœurs et les religions ne se semblent pas.” Voltaire, “Essai sur les mœurs,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 26A (2013), 172. The Comte de Modave, who had seen a great deal of India as an officer between 1757 and 1777, came to a quite different conclusion: India was “une grande nation uniforme dans toutes ses parties et sans mélanges de peuples étrangers” (Voyage en Inde, 1971, 407).

110. A similar polarity can still be found in the literature of the twentieth century; see Embree, Imagining India, 1989, 9.

111. On eighteenth-century Jesuit reporting, see Murr, “Les Jésuites et l’Inde,” 1986, 13ff.

112. Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 1993, 1102–10.

113. Wahl, Erdbeschreibung von Ostindien, 1805, 866. For a nuanced decription by a modern anthropologist, see S. Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India, 1999, 8–9.

114. Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 33.

115. Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 37.

116. A. Smith, Wealth of Nations, 1776, 81; on this see Platteau, Les économistes classiques, 1978, vol. 1, 119ff. Smith’s arguments were later reprised and developed in Tennant, Indian Recreations, 1803, vol. 1, 83–92: the caste system stands in the way of the functional division of labor.

117. Sonnerat, Voyages aux Indes Orientales, 1782, vol. 1, 43–63.

118. Hennings, Gegenwärtiger Zustand, 1784–86, vol. 3, 478–79, also 499.

119. Embree, Charles Grant, 1962, 147.

120. E. Burke, “Opening of the Impeachment” (Feb. 15, 1788), in Burke, India: The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment, 1991, 303.

121. Perrin, Voyage dans l’Indostan, 1807, vol. 1, 299.

122. Another Catholic conservative later expressed the same idea more forcefully still: the Indian caste system offers optimal protection against despotism. Schlegel, “Philosophie der Geschichte,” 1971, 86–87.

123. Cœurdoux and Desvaulx, Mœurs and coutumes des Indiens, 1987, 8–9. That the Brahmins universally cultivated an elite lifestyle—as was widely believed in Europe—was disputed by travelers who reported seeing Brahmins behind a plow: Deleury, Les Indes florissantes, 1991, 790ff.

124. Cœurdoux and Desvaulx, Mœurs and coutumes des Indiens, 1987, 9.

125. Herder, Outlines, 1800, 307: “Ohne Zweifel war die Einrichtung der Brahmanen, als sie gestiftet war, gut: sonst hätte sie weder den Umfang noch die Tiefe und Dauer gewonnen, in der sie dasteht.” (Herder, Ideen, 1989, 454).

126. Dubois, Description of the Character, Manners and Customs of the People of India, 1817, 4; similarly Herder, Ideen, 1989, 455; Herder, Outlines, 1800, 308.

127. Robertson, Historical Disquisition, 1812, 200.

128. Robertson, Historical Disquisition, 1812, 202. On Robertson’s views on castes, see also Carnall, “Robertson and Contemporary Images of India,” 1997, 214–15.

129. See in summary Kejariwal, Asiatic Society, 1988; Windisch, Geschichte der Sanskrit-Philologie, 1917–20, vol. 1, 22ff.; Franklin, Orientalist Jones, 2011, 205–50. On Hegel’s use of these studies (especially that of H. T. Colebrooke), see Halbfass, India and Europe, 1988, 84ff.

130. Mill, History of British India, 1817, vol. 1, 701.

131. See Majeed, Ungoverned Imaginings, 1992, 159–63.

132. Mill, History of British India, 1817, vol. 1, 48, also 50, 73–75, 161, 370, 472, 702–3, 720. Even more dismissive in tone is a Baptist missionary: Ward, A View of the History, Literature, and Religion of the Hindoos, 1817–20, vol. 3, xxvi, 64ff., likewise Tennant, Indian Recreations, 1803, 115.

133. See the minutely detailed evidence in Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Berlin 1822/1823, 1996, 570–96. Not included in the English translation of 2011.

134. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, 2011, 260: “wie zu Naturdingen” (Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Berlin 1822/1823, 177).

135. Hegel, Die orientalische Welt, 1923, 371.

136. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, 2011, 271 (corrected); Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Berlin 1822/1823, 1996, 191.

137. Hegel, Die orientalische Welt, 1923, 377; Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, 2011, 263; Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Berlin 1822/1823, 181. On Hegel’s interpretation of the Indian castes, see also Leuze, Die außerchristlichen Religionen bei Hegel, 1975, 97–104.

138. On further developments in the nineteenth century see Inden, Imagining India, 1990, 49–84; Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, 1994, 114–25.

139. Dubois, Mœurs, institutions et cérémonies des peuples de l’Inde, 1825, vol. 1, 96–123. On Dubois see Dirks, Castes of Mind, 2001, 21–26.

140. Poivre, Voyages d’un philosophe, 1768, 52–54.

141. Voltaire, “Essai sur les mœurs,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 24 (2011), 481–88.

142. Brunner, “Feudalismus, feudal,” 1975, 341 (on Voltaire).

143. Imbruglia, “Tra Anquetil-Duperron e ‘L’Histoire des deux Indes,’ ” 1994, 168. As Imbruglia shows, a similar approximation of Montesquieu’s pure “ideal types” can be found in Raynal and Diderot’s Histoire des deux Indes (169–74).

144. Virey, Histoire naturelle du genre humain, 1824, vol. 1, 445.

145. Important in-depth analyses of such feudal conditions in Asia are: Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, 210ff., 350ff.; G. Forster, A Journey from Bengal to England, 1808, vol. 1, 135ff., vol. 2, 89, 99–100; J. Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, 1813, vol. 2, 39–63 (on the Marathas); Pallas, Reise in die südlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs, 1799–1801, vol. 2, 355ff., 383–85; Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 197, 207–8 (on the Kurds). J. R. Forster (Bemerkungen, 1783, 311) recognized Poivre’s description of Malay feudalism in Tahiti: Poivre, Voyages d’un philosophe, 1768, 52–54.

146. J. B. Fraser, Journal of a Tour through Part of the Snowy Range of the Himala Mountains, 1820, 4. Elphinstone saw parallels between Scotland and Afghanistan: McLaren, “From Analysis to Prescription,” 1993, 475.

147. Tone, “Illustrations of Some Institutions of the Mahratta People,” 130, on military organization 136ff. This also becomes evident from Duff’s narrative history, which never gives a systematic analysis of the Mahratha system: Duff, History of the Mahrattas, 1826.

148. See Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, 2011, 282–83 (quote 283); Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Berlin 1822/1823, 1996, 206–7. For him, too, the Marathas are the last and worst of these feudal powers.

149. Richardson, Dissertation on the Languages, Literature and Manners of Eastern Nations, 1778, pt. 2, 151; later in this work, the author compares the different styles of “feudal war” in Europe and the “East” (212ff.).

150. Voltaire, “Essai sur les mœurs,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 26C (2015), 281–82 (quote 282); Mill, History of British India, 1817, vol. 1, 70, 476.

151. Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, 1920; the work came out in three volumes with around 1,500 pages in 1829–32. See Peabody, “Tod’s ‘Rajast’han,’ ” 1996, esp. 194–200; on Tod’s scholarship see Rietbergen, Europa’s India, 2007, 249–77 (for his views on chivalry among the Rajputs see 265–68).

152. Cohn, An Anthropologist among the Historians, 1987, 652–76.

153. Caron and Schouten, A True Description of the Mighty Kingdom of Japan and Siam, 1935, 30–36.

154. Castilhon, Considérations, 1769, 244–45.

155. That is why there was said to be no duelling in despotic states; see for example Le Comte, Nouveaux Mémoires sur l’état present de la Chine, 1697, vol. 1, 367; Bruin, A Voyage to the Levant, 1702, 97.

156. Castilhon, Considérations, 1769, 248.

157. See Heilbron, Rise of Social Theory, 1995, 72ff.; also Woolf, “The Construction of a European World View,” 1992, 93.

158. See Keane, “Despotism and Democracy,” 1988.

159. Goody, The East in the West, 1996, 181; a whole chapter on this motif in a later book: Goody, The Theft of History, 2006, 267–85.

160. A paradigmatic example is Nieuhof, An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, 1669, 172–215.

161. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 2, 75.

162. Navarette, Travels and Controversies, 1962, vol. 2, 173–74.

163. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 2, 75.

164. Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 2, 75–76.

165. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 186–87, also 177–78, 192–93.

166. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 149, also 142.

167. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 153.

168. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 395. See also C.L.J. de Guignes, Voyages à Peking, 1808, vol. 2, 163.

169. Hume, “Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences” (1741–42), in Hume, Essays, 1987, 127.

170. Bayer, Museum Sinicum, 1730, vol. 1, 122–25; see also Mémoires concernant l’histoire … des Chinois, 1776–1814, vol. 8 (1782), 246ff.

171. W. Jones, “Fourth Anniversary Discourse, on the Arabs,” in Works, 1807, vol. 3, 66–67; also Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 178ff.; Boulainvilliers, Histoire des Arabes, 1731, 36–37.

172. Maybon, La relation sur le Tonkin, 1920, 168.

173. Ziegenbalg, Malabarisches Heidenthum, 1926, 236–37.

174. For example Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, 283–84.

175. Browne, Travels in Africa, Egypt and Syria, 1799, 425–43.

176. Browne, Travels in Africa, Egypt and Syria, 1799, 430.

177. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 61, 195, 198, 199.

178. For an interpretation of Humboldt in this context, see Osterhammel, “Alexander von Humboldt,” 1998.

179. This section is based on Osterhammel, “Gastfreiheit und Fremdenabwehr,” 1997. On the realities of hospitality, especially in Europe, see a magnificent chapter in Roche, Humeurs vagabondes, 2003, 479–566.

180. See above chapter 4.

181. Still, Enlightenment Hospitality, 2011, 167–70.

182. Tacitus, Germania, 1999, sec. 21.2, 86.

183. Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, 1820, vol.1, 53.

184. Hodges, Travels in India, 1793, 45.

185. Francklin, Observations Made on a Tour from Bengal to Persia, 1790, 156.

186. D. Campbell, Journey over Land to India, 1796, 31.

187. Jaubert, Voyage en Arménie et en Perse, 1821, 75ff.

188. Engelhardt and Parrott, Reise in die Krym und den Kaukasus, 1815, 24, 41; Georgi, Beschreibung aller Nationen des Rußischen Reichs, 1776–80, vol. 2, 101; Züge, Der russische Colonist, 1988, 194–96.

189. Pottinger, Travels in Belochistan and Sinde, 1816, 61–63. Balochs also live in parts of Iran and Afghanistan.

190. Hunter, Concise Account of the Kingdom of Pegu, 1785, 32–33.

191. Merck, Das sibirisch-amerikanische Tagebuch aus den Jahren 1788–1791, 2009, 338.

192. Wood, Ruins of Balbec, 1757, 4.

193. T. Shaw, Travels or Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary, 1808, xii–xxiv.

194. Judges 19:15, King James Bible.

195. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 231.

196. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 211.

197. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, 46.

198. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, 47.

199. Michaelis, Fragen an eine Gesellschaft gelehrter Männer, 1762, 386.

200. For example, Lane, Account of Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, 1895, 297.

201. Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, 1829, vol. 2, 378.

202. If there is such a theory for our own time, it was provided by Jacques Derrida. See his Of Hospitality, 2000.

203. Robertson, Progress of Society in Europe, 1972, 166, also 63–64.

204. Robertson, Progress of Society in Europe, 1972, 167.

205. A. Smith, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1976, vol. 1, 413.

206. A. Smith, Correspondence, 1977, 142: Letter to Lord Hailes, March 5, 1769.

207. Ferguson, Essay on the History of Civil Society, 1966: 101–2.

208. “Les plus petites choses, celles que l’humanité demande, s’y font ou s’y donnent pour de l’argent.” Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 19/4, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 586; Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 339.

209. Condorcet, Esquisse d’un tableau historique, 1988, 109.

210. Falconer, Remarks on the Influence of Climate, 1781, 334.

211. Falconer, Remarks on the Influence of Climate, 1781, 367.

212. Falconer, Remarks on the Influence of Climate, 1781, 369.

213. Hume, History of England, 1983, vol. 4, 383.

214. Kames, Sketches of the History of Man, 1778, vol. 1, 30, also vol. 2, 176–87.

215. Démeunier , L’esprit des usages et des coutumes, 1776 vol. 2, 113.

216. Hirschfeld, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 1777, 16. A new edition (with a good afterword by Maurizio Pirro) is Hirschfeld, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 2015. See also Jancke, Gastfreundschaft in der frühneuzeitlichen Gesellschaft, 2013, 440–74.

217. Hirschfeld, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 1777, 27.

218. Hirschfeld, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 1777, 27.

219. Hirschfeld, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 1777, 84.

220. Hirschfeld, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 1777, 100–101.

221. Hirschfeld, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 1777, 120.

222. Hirschfeld, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 1777, 129.

223. Hirschfeld, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 1777, 168.

224. Hirschfeld, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 1777, 169–70.

225. A. v. Humboldt, Relation historique, 1814–25, vol. 1, 293; A. v. Humboldt, Personal Narrative, 1815, 360; translation modified.

CHAPTER XII. WOMEN

    1. “Il ne suffisoit pas d’avoir divisé les champs et les prairies, et de leur avoir donné des maîtres. C’étoit peu que d’être parvenu à fixer autour de leurs cabanes des esclaves destinés à les servir. Les réglements faits de cette matiere, ne concernoient que des besoins: bientôt il en fallut faire pour mettre de l’ordre, même dans les plaisirs. Les uns avoient donné lieu à la dégradation involontaire du genre humain: les autres auroient amené sa ruine totale. De tous ces plaisirs, le plus vif étoit sans contredit l’union des deux sexes; il dut aussi se ressentir le premier de l’étrange revolution qui venoit d’arriver sur la terre.” Linguet, Théorie des lois civiles, 1984, 183.

    2. Meiners, History of the Female Sex, 1808, vol. 1, 1. A slightly earlier “world history” of women was Alexander, The History of Women, 1779. In contrast to Meiners’s more or less ethnographic attitude, that work by an English medical doctor was written from a male “us and them” perspective: women as “the other sex.”

    3. Mehmed Efendi, Le paradis des infidèles, 1981, 73–74, 94 (this ambassadorial journal was first published in French in 1757); see also Göçek, East Encounters West, 1987, esp. 38–48; and from an Iranian perspective: Ghanoonparvar, In a Persian Mirror, 1993, 15ff.

    4. “La plus grande différence entre nous et les Orientaux, est la manière dont nous traitons les femmes.” Voltaire, “Essai sur les mœurs,” in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 26C (2015), 326.

    5. On Kindersley see Dyson, A Various Universe, 1978, 122ff.

    6. Melman, Women’s Orients, 1995, 36–37. E. M. Forster’s “Introductory Notes” to his edition of the letters begin with a compliment: “Eliza Fay is a work of art.” Fay, Original Letters from India, 1925, 7. The Letters are still in print, the latest reissue dating from 2010. On Eliza Fay’s life see http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/45846.

    7. Fay, Original Letters from India, 1925, 16.

    8. See above, chapter 9, section 5: “Knights and Strangers in the Crimea.”

    9. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, 1774–1837, vol. 1, 241.

  10. Kindersley, Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, 1777, 102.

  11. Chardin, Voyages, 1735, vol. 3, 392; descriptions of such scenes are frequent; see for example, Du Mans, Estat de la Perse, 1890, 95–96.; Kaempfer, Am Hofe des persischen Großkönigs, 1940, 184–85.

  12. See above, chapter 11, section 4: “Close-Up: Urban Life in Syrian Aleppo.” See several articles in Zilfi, Women in the Ottoman Empire, 1997.

  13. A “seraglio” was generally taken to refer only to the monarch’s harem, especially that of the sultan in Istanbul.

  14. Kaempfer, Am Hofe des persischen Großkönigs 1940, 180–81. On the precision of Kaempfer’s observations and their lack of bias see Gronke, “Am Hofe von Isfahan,” 2004, 191, 193–94.

  15. Chardin, Voyages, 1735, vol. 3, 383–92.

  16. See Peirce, Imperial Harem, 1993, on the harem in Istanbul as a power center. Its organizational structure is described with the objectivity of an administrative manual in d’Ohsson, Tableau générale de l’Empire Othoman, 1788–1824, vol. 7, 62–88. European descriptions of the sultan’s seraglio between 1551 and 1845 are discussed in Penzer, The Harêm, 1936, 27–50; he considers the best to have been that of the Venetian ambassador Ottaviano Bon, who was active in Istanbul between 1604 and 1607.

  17. D’Ohsson, Tableau générale de l’Empire Othoman, 1788–1824, vol. 7, 68; Businello, Historische Nachrichten, 1778, 22; Manucci, Storia do Mogor, 1906–8, vol. 2, 330 (on pp. 330–40 an extensive description on the basis of the author’s knowledge as Aurangzeb’s personal physician); Semedo, The History of that Great and Renowned Monarchy of China, 1655, 113; Kaempfer, Am Hofe des persischen Großkönigs, 1940, 182 (Roemer, Persien, 1989, 362, ascribes eight hundred harem concubines to Shah Safi II).

  18. Chardin, Voyages, 1735, vol. 3, 396.

  19. For example, Grose, A Voyage to the East Indies, 1772, 136; Sonnini, Voyage dans la haute et basse Égypte, 1799, vol. 1, 285–86; Habesci, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 1784, 170–72; Hill, A Full and Just Account of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 1709), 163ff. These last two books are sensationalist works of little source value.

  20. Fryer, A New Account of East India and Persia, 1909–15, vol. 3, 131; see also Olearius, Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung, 1656, 311; Allgemeine Geschichte der neueren Entdeckungen, 1777–86, vol. 2, 271ff. On the Indians, Roubaud strikes a similar note: Histoire générale de l’Asie, 1770–72, vol. 2, 91ff.

  21. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, 271.

  22. One traveler claimed to have discovered that the khan of Bukhara, along with his seraglio of concubines, kept a harem of forty to sixty pleasure boys and also took carnal delight in donkeys: Eversmann, Reise von Orenburg nach Buchara, 1823, 84. Reports on pederasty in the travel literature are compiled in Démeunier , L’esprit des usages et des coutumes, 1776, vol. 2, 309ff.

  23. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, 261.

  24. Caron and Schouten, A True Description of the Mighty Kingdom of Japan and Siam, 1935, 142–43.

  25. Sonnini, Voyage dans la haute et basse Égypte, 1799, vol. 1, 279.

  26. Knox, Historical Relation, 1681, 91.

  27. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, 261. Detailed accounts of prostitutes are rare; for an exception, see Grose, A Voyage to the East Indies, 1772, 138–44.

  28. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 1 (1827), 231.

  29. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 1 (1827), 232.

  30. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 16/2, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 509.

  31. E.g., R. K. Porter, Travels in Georgia, 1820–21, 340–41.

  32. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 16/8, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 514; Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 269. Malthus (Works, 1986, vol. 2, 119) cites a passage from William Jones’s 1794 translation of the Mânava-Dharmasâstra, the “Ordinances of Menu,” which says much the same.

  33. Browne, Travels in Africa, Egypt and Syria, 1799, 429–32.

  34. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 16/10, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 516.

  35. Verelst, A View of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the English Government in Bengal, 1772, 138–39.

  36. See also Garcia, Islam and the English Enlightenment, 2012, 68–82.

  37. Montagu, Complete Letters, 1965–67, vol. 1, 407.

  38. Montagu, Complete Letters, 1965–67, vol. 1, 329. On the background of these letters see Grundy, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 1999, 134–66.

  39. Pitton de Tournefort, Relation, 1717, vol. 2, 95.

  40. Montagu, Complete Letters, 1965–67, vol. 1, 328.

  41. Montagu, Complete Letters, 1965–67, vol. 1, 329. An almost word-for-word echo of this sentence can still be found in Salaberry, Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, 1813, vol. 4, 165.

  42. Montagu, Complete Letters, 1965–67, vol. 1, 312–15, 349–52, 381–82.

  43. On forms of voyeurism in the harem literature (Montesquieu, Diderot), see Pucci, “The Discrete Charms of the Exotic,” 1990.

  44. This important source does not figure in several of the leading contributions: F. Davis, The Ottoman Lady, 1986; Peirce, Imperial Harem, 1993; Booth, Harem Histories, 2010.

  45. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 247–48.

  46. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 260, 263. See as a modern corrective to Enlightenment authorities such as the Russells and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Ambros, “Frivolity and Flirtation,” 2016.

  47. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 261.

  48. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 242.

  49. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 242.

  50. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 243.

  51. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 257, 291.

  52. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 292, see also 282 on the power and reputation of a “Turkish matron.”

  53. Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, 1794, vol. 1, 291.

  54. Carne, Letters from the East, 1826, 12.

  55. Closely related to the Russells in its stance and assertions is the long chapter on women in Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 2, 226–96.

  56. 1 Kings 11:3.

  57. Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,” 1764, 176–77.

  58. Pallas, Reise in die südlichen Statthalterschaften des Rußischen Reiches, 1799–1801, vol. 2, 359.

  59. Georgi, Beschreibung aller Nationen des Rußischen Reichs, 1776–80, vol. 2, 102–3. Niebuhr makes similar remarks on Arabia: Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, 73–74.

  60. Duteil, Le mandat du ciel, 1994, 277.

  61. Duteil, Le mandat du ciel, 1994, 277–80.

  62. Démeunier , L’esprit des usages et des coutumes, 1776, vol. 2, sec. 275.

  63. See Hume, “Of Polygamy and Divorces,” in Hume, Essays, 1987, 181–90, esp. 184.

  64. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 16/9, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 514.

  65. Unlike Malcolm, History of Persia, 1829, vol. 2, 452, who mainly blamed polygamy for the civilizational backwardness of Muslim lands.

  66. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 16/4, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 511. Even so, Montesquieu saw himself later compelled to defend his interpretation of polygamy in his “Défense de l’Esprit des Lois”: Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 1141–43.

  67. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 16/2 in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 510.

  68. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 16/4, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 511; and 23/12, 690.

  69. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, 272.

  70. Michaelis, Fragen an eine Gesellschaft gelehrter Männer, 1762, unpaginated.

  71. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772, 70ff. Examples of early serious demographic discussions on Asiatic countries are Raffles, History of Java, 1817, vol. 1, 61ff.; H. Burney, Report on the Mission to Siam, 1911, 51–52.

  72. R. Wallace, A Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind, 1809, on polygamy 86–87. Wallace reacted to the opposite view of his acquaintance David Hume, who devoted one of his longest and most erudite essays to the theme: “Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,” in Essays, 1987, 377–464.

  73. Montesquieu, “Lettres persanes,” in Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu, vol. 1 (2004), 439–41; Montesquieu, Persian Letters, 1973, 206–7; Laurens, Les origines intellectuels, 1987, 108–9.

  74. Raffles, History of Java, 1817, vol. 1, 73–74.

  75. Grosier, Description générale de la Chine, 1785, 289–90.

  76. Grosier, Description générale de la Chine, 1785, 289.

  77. Dubois, Mœurs, institutions et cérémonies des peuples de l’Inde, 1825, vol. 1, 117ff.

  78. See Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, 1967, 632–34.

  79. Bashford and Chaplin, The New Worlds of Thomas Robert Malthus, 2016, have made this abundantly clear for the Americas. A parallel study could be undertaken on Malthus’s views on Asia.

  80. Malthus, Works, 1986, vol. 2, 82.

  81. Malthus, Works, 1986, vol. 2, 82–83, 113. See also the general reflections in the chapter on Africa, 94.

  82. Malthus, Works, 1986, vol. 2, 80–81, also among the Kyrgyz: 84.

  83. Malthus, Works, 1986, vol. 2, 125ff.

  84. Malthus, Works, 1986, vol. 2, 113.

  85. Malthus, Works, 1986, vol. 2, 122. Malthus borrows not just the data but also their interpretation from Samuel Turner (Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama Tibet, 1800, esp. 351).

  86. Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 16/9, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 514–15; Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1989, 270.

  87. Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 72; Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 16. The English translator speaks of “domestic relations” and thus misses the point that Heeren sees the household as a basic element of “society.”

  88. Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 72; Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 17.

  89. “Vielweiberey gründet nothwendig Familiendespotismus, weil sie das Weib zur Sklavin und eben dadurch den Mann zum Herrscher macht. Die Gesellschaft der Staatsbürger besteht also hier nicht aus einer Zahl von Hausvätern, sondern häuslichen Despoten, die, weil sie selber despotisiren, auch wieder despotisirt seyn wollen. Wer blind befiehlt, ist auch nur geschickt, blind zu gehorchen.” Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 73; Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 17. Similarly Hammer-Purgstall, Umblick auf einer Reise von Constantinopel nach Brussa, 1818, 45.

  90. Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 73; Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 17.

  91. Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 74; Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 18.

  92. Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 74; Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 18.

  93. Heeren, “Ideen,” in Historische Werke, 1821–26, vol. 10 (1824), 75; Heeren, Historical Researches, 1846, vol. 1, 18.

  94. Kames, Sketches of the History of Man, 1778, vol. 2, 53–54.

  95. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 3, 627. See also Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 5, 298ff., 354ff.

  96. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 16, 40–41, 374ff.

  97. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 1, 313. The most influential discussion of Zenobia was R. Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra, 1753, 4ff.

  98. Petech, I missionari italiani nel Tibet e nel Nepal, 1954–56, vol. 6, 106; Montesquieu, “De l’esprit des lois,” 14/4, in Œuvres, 1949–51, vol. 2, 511; Grosier, Description générale de la Chine, 1785, 235–36; S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama Tibet, 1800, 348–53.

  99. S. Turner, Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama Tibet, 1800, 350.

100. Petech, I missionari italiani nel Tibet e nel Nepal, 1954–56, vol. 6, 100.

101. Caron and Schouten, A True Description of the Mighty Kingdom of Japan and Siam, 1935, 107.

102. A. Hamilton, New Account of the East Indies, 1930, vol. 2, 96; Poivre, “Voyage de Pierre Poivre en Cochinchine,” 1885, 390.

103. Raffles, History of Java, 1817, vol. 1, 109–10.

104. Barrow, A Voyage to Cochin China, 1806, 303; Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 141.

105. Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, 1839, vol. 1, 241.

106. Kaempfer, Geschichte und Beschreibung Japans, 1777–79, vol. 1, 138; Kaempfer, Heutiges Japan, 2001, vol. 1, 99. “Wives of fishermen” (Kaempfer’s Japan, 1999, 69) seems to be an incorrect translation. Further evidence of women’s work in Kames, Sketches of the History of Man, 1778, vol. 1, 35–37.

107. Bruin, A Voyage to the Levant, 1702, 102.

108. Percival, An Account of the Island of Ceylon, 1805, 194.

109. Barrow, A Voyage to Cochin China, 1806, 305; Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China, 1967, 521.

110. La Bissachère, Etat actuelle du Tunkin, 1812, vol. 2, 42 (42–62 on the position of women in Vietnam, also vol. 1, 270ff., on their legal position).

111. Symes, An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, 1800, 217; Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy from the Governor General of India to the Court of Ava, 1834, vol. 1, 244.

112. A valuable anthology is Major, Sati, 2007 (with two British and two Indian accounts from the nineteenth century: 44–61). See also the same author’s analysis of these and other sources: Major, Pious Flames, 2006.

113. Fisch, “Jenseitsglaube, Ungleichheit und Tod,” 1993, 295.

114. By a rough estimate, perhaps one in four hundred widows immolated herself in Bengal at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Fisch, “Jenseitsglaube, Ungleichheit und Tod,” 1993, 269. The standard monograph on widow burning and similar phenomena is Fisch, Burning Women, 2006.

115. Some examples of descriptions: Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 305–15; Tavernier, Travels in India, 1889, vol. 2, 162–72; Hodges, Travels in India, 1793, 79–83; Sonnerat, Voyages aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine, 1782, vol. 1, ch. 8; J. Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, 1813, vol. 1, 279–83; Dubois, Mœurs, institutions et cérémonies des peuples de l’Inde, 1825, vol. 2, 18–34. There were also serious observers who did not give undue prominence to widow burning in their wide-ranging ethnographic accounts, e.g., San Bartolomeo, Viaggio alle Indie orientale, 1796.

116. Lenglet-Dufresnoy, A New Method of Studying History, 1728, vol. 1, 31.

117. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 313–15.

118. This is the summary offered by Ward, A View of the History, Literature, and Religion of the Hindoos, 1817–20, vol. 3, xxv–xxvi, xliv et seq.

119. Major, Sati, 2007, 75–151.

120. See Narasimhan, Sati, 1990, 132–42.

121. Mani, Contentious Traditions, 1998, 79.

122. See Démeunier , L’esprit des usages et des coutumes, 1776, vol. 1, 68ff. This is also an important topic in Picart’s and Bernard’s huge encyclopedia of religious customs: Picart, Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses, 1723–37. The unacknowledged coauthor of this work, along with the engraver Bernard Picart, was Jean-Fréderic Bernard. See Hunt, Jacob, and Mijnhardt, The Book that Changed Europe, 2010.

123. Hume, Essays, 1987, 131.

124. Hume, Essays, 1987, 133.

125. Hume, History of England, 1983, vol. 1, 486–87.

126. Ferguson, Essay on the History of Civil Society, 1966, 200–203.

127. Millar, Origins of the Distinction of Ranks, 2006, 93–156. Many of Millar’s viewpoints were further developed in the first years of the nineteenth century by the early French socialist (and late Enlightenment thinker) Charles Fourier.

128. However, there were also less progressivist voices in Scotland. On the dissident author Gilbert Stuart who took a dim view of the liberty of women in modern commercial society see Sebastiani, The Scottish Enlightenment, 2012, 141–43.

129. Kames, Sketches of the History of Man, 1778, vol. 1, 41.

130. Kames, Sketches of the History of Man, 1778, vol. 1, 69–70.

131. Kames augments the usual theory of knighthood (Kames, Sketches of the History of Man, 1778, vol. 1, 82–84) by investigating the decline of the first, medieval form of “chivalry” and its revival in the less naïve, “more substantial” modern form of “gallantry” (85).

132. Richardson, Dissertation on the Languages, Literature and Manners of Eastern Nations, 1778, pt. 2, 200.

133. Richardson, Dissertation on the Languages, Literature and Manners of Eastern Nations, 1778, pt. 2, 335. Hobhouse, a staunch defender of Turkish womanhood, later pursues a similar line of argument: A Journey through Albania and Other Provinces of Turkey, 1813, vol. 1, 345–47.

134. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 138.

135. Mill, History of British India, 1817, vol. 1, 279.

136. Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 2, 257. The passage is polemically directed against the Montesquieu of the Lettres Persanes.

137. Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 2, 191.

138. Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 2, 192.

139. Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 2, 194–95.

140. Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 2, 232.

CHAPTER XIII. INTO A NEW AGE: THE RISE OF EUROCENTRISM

    1. C. Burney, A General History of Music, 1935, vol. 1, 11 (preface).

    2. “Sie [die musikalische Kritik] muß für schön erkennen, was jeder Mensch, was jedes Volk nach dem Maaße seiner Kenntniß, nach dem Grade der Entwickelung seiner Fähigkeiten für schön gehalten wissen will.… Der Neugrieche, der Türke, der Perser, der Chinese, der amerikanische Wilde, dessen Tonleitern, woraus er seine Melodien bildet, von den unsrigen so sehr abweichen, daß wir nicht im Stande sind, nur die mindeste Ordnung und Schönheit darin zu finden, hat dennoch eine schöne Musik, weil sie ihm gefällt und weil er die nämliche Unordnung, die wir der seinigen vorwerfen, auch an der unsrigen gewahr zu werden glaubt.” Forkel, Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik, 1788–1801, vol. 1 (1788), xiv.

    3. “Dans toute l’antiquité, et chez les nations orientales de l’époque actuelle, la musique n’est constituée que par la mélodie et par le rhythme, tandis que chez les Européens modernes, et dans leurs colonies du nouveau monde, l’harmonie simultanée des sons s’est ajoutée aux autres éléments pour former un art complet.… Partout et dans tous les temps il y a eu des chants populaires et religieux: chez les Européens modernes seul il y a eu une art de musique.” Fétis, Histoire générale de la musique, 1869–76, vol. 1 (1869), 5.

    4. This is also true of a few of Fétis’s contemporaries. See Bohlman, “The European Discovery of Music in the Islamic World,” 1987.

    5. This changed to some extent with the rise of musical exoticism from the 1880s onwards. For a comprehensive discussion, see Osterhammel, “Globale Horizonte europäischer Kunstmusik,” 2012.

    6. According to the estimates of Maddison, The World Economy, 2001, 28 (tables 1–2).

    7. Schleier, Geschichte der deutschen Kulturgeschichtsschreibung, 2003.

    8. On this moment of openness see especially Jami, The Emperor’s New Mathematics, 2012.

    9. G. K. Goodman, Japan and the Dutch, 2000, chs. 11–14.

  10. On Asian interest in Europe in the early modern period see several of the contributions in Schwartz, Implicit Understandings, 1994. On Japan see Keene, Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1969. The topic is explored under the heading of “Occidentalism” in Carrier, Occidentalism, 1995.

  11. See also the parallel investigations on Europe’s efforts to distance itself from its oriental origins in Bernal, Black Athena, 1987.

  12. The dating is Pocock’s: Barbarism and Religion, vol. 6, 2015, 489–90.

  13. Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1994, vol. 2, 512. Gibbon’s emphasis. See also Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, vol. 6, 2015, 497–98.

  14. A. v. Humboldt, Essai politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne, 1825–27.

  15. More critical on Ritter is Schröder, Das Wissen von der ganzen Welt, 2011, see, for example, pp. 117–22 on his geography of Africa.

  16. Above all in the account of Admiral George Anson’s famous circumnavigation of the globe from 1740–44: Walter and Robins, A Voyage round the World, 1974. This report, which was widely read and highly regarded throughout Europe, contains one of the earliest anti-Chinese polemics.

  17. Especially in his history of India: Elphinstone, History of India, 1841.

  18. There were exceptions of course. Among thinkers of the first rank, these included Marx and Tocqueville, whose writings on Algeria and India merit greater attention: Tocqueville, Œuvres complètes, vol. 3, 1962. But see Pitts, A Turn to Empire, 2005, 204–39.

  19. See Osterhammel, “Gastfreiheit und Fremdenabwehr,” 1997, 397–404. On the Macartney Mission: Peyrefitte, The Immobile Empire, 1992; Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar, 1995; Dabringhaus, “Einleitung,” 1996.

  20. For Egypt on the basis of unpublished correspondence: Laissus, L’Égypte, 1998, for India C. A. Bayly, Empire and Information in India, 1996.

  21. Koselleck, Futures Past, 1985; Foucault, The Order of Things, 1971; Luhmann, Theory of Society, 2012–13, vol. 2, ch.5; Thom, Republics, Nations and Tribes, 1995.

  22. Tavernier, Nouvelle relation, 1675, 130. Others made detailed calculations of such riches, such as Catrou (based on Manuzzi), History of the Mogul Dynasty, 1826, 306ff.

  23. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1934, 223ff.; Gemelli Careri, “A Voyage round the World,” 1745, 235; also Tavernier, Travels in India, 1889, vol. 1, 391.

  24. If even the ever-critical Barrow was impressed by the affluence he observed in the Vietnam of the early 1790s, there must have been something to it: Barrow, A Voyage to Cochin China, 1806, 311ff.; similarly also Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China, 1967, 236.

  25. See for example the detailed descriptions in Kaempfer, Phoenix Persicus, 1987; Poivre, Voyages d’un philosophe, 1768; Ekeberg, Précis historique de l’économie rurale des Chinois, 1771; Thunberg, Reise durch einen Theil von Europa, Afrika und Asien, 1794, vol. 2, pt. 2, 55–73; Colebrooke, Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal Commerce of Bengal, 1806; Buchanan, Journey from Madras, 1807.

  26. Hassel, Geographisch-statistisches Handwörterbuch, 1817–18, vol. 2, 374.

  27. Mill, History of British India, 1815, vol. 1, 331ff.; Tenant had already adopted a similar line, Indian Recreations, 1803, vol. 2, 8–20.

  28. Dubois, Mœurs, institutions et cérémonies des peuples de l’Inde, 1825, vol. 1, 96.

  29. Ambirajan, Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India, 1978, 59ff.; Picht, Handel, Politik und Gesellschaft, 1993, 216–18.

  30. The Jesuits did not have much to say about famines. There is, however, an interesting early (1735) analysis of Chinese food supplies in a letter from Pater Parennin to Jean-Jacques d’Ortous de Mairan: Societas Jesu, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 1780–83, vol. 22, 174–87. The discussion at the end of the century begins with provocations from de Pauw and Grosier’s response, Description générale de la Chine, 1785, 290–95.

  31. Chardin, Voyages, 1735, vol. 2, 46ff.; vol. 3, 296ff.

  32. C.L.J. de Guignes, Voyages à Peking, 1809, vol. 3, 166. European diplomats complained at times about the inferior value of the gifts they received from the Chinese. But from a Chinese viewpoint, a jade scepter that issued directly from the emperor’s hand was no less valuable than an English coach.

  33. Poivre, Voyages d’un philosophe, 1768, 5–8 and passim.

  34. Holberg, Vergleichung der Historien und Thaten, 1748–51, vol. 1, 237–38, had already noted that China flourished because private ownership of land was allowed there, whereas India stagnated because it was forbidden.

  35. Thornton, Present State of Turkey, 1809, vol. 1, 65ff.; Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 397–401 (here 401), also 566–71, 578.

  36. Platteau, Les économistes classiques, 1978, esp. vol. 1, 105ff.; vol. 2, 412ff. The impression of Asian stasis lingered on at a lower level of generalization in mercantile discourses; see for example Blake Smith, “Myths of South Asian Stasis,” 2016.

  37. On the absence of ruins in Asia, see Barchewitz, Reisebeschreibung, 1730, preface; Hodges, Travels in India, 1793, 10–11; Meiners, Betrachtungen, 1795–96, vol. 1, 267; Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 4–5; Barrow, A Voyage to Cochin China, 1806, 312; later Curzon, Problems of the Far East, 1894, 83.

  38. Mendoza, The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China, 1853–54, vol. 2, 282.

  39. Wansleb, “Beschreibung von Aegypten im Jahre 1664,” 1794, 111.

  40. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 156.

  41. For example, Du Halde, Description géographique, 1735, vol. 1, 317.

  42. See M. Harbsmeier, “Before Decypherment,” 1991.

  43. Bruin, Voyages, 1718, 291, as critic of Alexander; Dubos, Reflexions, 1719, vol. 2, 147. The more recent history of Europeans as producers of ruins begins with Cortéz’s depredations in Mexico.

  44. Thévenot, Travels, 1687, vol. 1, 121–23.

  45. Joliffe, Letters from Palestine, 1822, vol. 2, 108; see also Bruin, A Voyage to the Levant, 1702, 172; Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 26; Valentia, Voyages and Travels to India, 1809, vol. 3, 455–63.

  46. See for example Hammer-Purgstall, Umblick auf einer Reise von Constantinopel nach Brussa, 1818, 43.

  47. Delhi was still surrounded by vast neighborhoods of ruins in the 1820s: Heber, Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, 1828, vol. 2, 290–94, 316–17.

  48. Lucas, Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas au Levant, 1731, 246; Güldenstaedt, Reise durch Rußland, 1787–91, vol. 1, 326.

  49. Bergk, Aegypten, 1799, 10.

  50. Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 30; Herder, Ideen, 1989, 440; see also Volney, “Les ruines, ou méditation sur les révolutions des empires,” in Volney, Œuvres, 1989–98, vol. 1, 165–439. An interpretation of this fascinating text must be dispensed with here.

  51. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 1827–35, vol. 1 (1827), xiv. Hammer’s view in a nutshell: ibid., 62 (the Peace of Karlowitz of 1699 as the starting point of decline).

  52. A contemporary overview of the various interpretations is provided by Chatfield, Historical Review of the Commercial, Political and Moral State of Hindostan, 1808, 56ff.

  53. See Grewal, Muslim Rule in India, 1970, 35, 117.

  54. See for example Raynal. Histoire philosophique et politique, 1775, vol. 1, 108–20, 203–36; Macpherson, The History of the European Commerce with India, 1812, 70ff.; Lueder, Geschichte des holländischen Handels, 1788, 243ff.

  55. See for example Herrmann, Gemählde von Ostindien, 1799, vol. 1, 6–7. Early pan-Asiatic reflections in Holberg, Vergleichung der Historien und Thaten, 1748–51, vol. 1, 1ff., 235–36; Harris and Campbell, Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, 1744–48, vol. 2, 821ff. Between triumph and elegy: Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 413–14.

  56. Playfair, An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes, 1805, esp. 70ff. Renaudot, despite calling his book Révolutions des empires, 1769, does not offer a general theory of empires.

  57. Kindersley, Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, 1777, 113.

  58. See Hodgen, Early Anthropology, 1964, 263–69, 379–80. Similar ideas are found in Enlightenment dress in J. R. Forster, Bemerkungen, 1783, 262–63; J. R. Forster, Observations, 1996, 196; Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, 207; Raffles, History of Java, 1817, vol. 1, 57.

  59. Marshall, “Introduction,” in Marshall, The British Discovery of Hinduism, 1970, 26–27; Van Aalst, British View of India, 1970, 336, 338. On other proponents of this thesis see Mitter, Much Maligned Monsters, 1977, 116, 144–45.

  60. For more detail see Kopf, British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance, 1969.

  61. See Halbfass, India and Europe, 1988, 60–61; Willson, A Mythical Image, 1964.

  62. See Poliakov, Aryan Myth, 1974, 183–214; Jauß, Studien zum Epochenwandel der ästhetischen Moderne, 1989, 23–66.

  63. See Marshall, “Introduction,” India: Madras and Bengal, 1981, 15.

  64. Mill, History of British India, 1817, vol. 1, 460.

  65. Diez, Denkwürdigkeiten, 1811–15, vol. 1, vi. Travelers obsessed with antiquity, such as Robert Wood, felt themselves transported back into the days of Homer upon seeing peasants in Asia Minor.

  66. Tennant, Indian Recreations, 1803, vol. 1, 4.

  67. Mill, History of British India, 1817, vol. 1, 483.

  68. Baumgarten, Algemeine Welthistorie, 1744–67, vol. 16, 1756, 377.

  69. Johann Nikolaus Forkel, quoted in Wang, Die Rezeption des chinesischen Ton-, Zahl- und Denksystems, 1985, 194.

  70. Malcolm, History of Persia, 1829, vol. 1, 82.

  71. J. de Guignes, Histoire générale des Huns, 1756–58, vol. 1, pt. 1, 76–77 (though a different note is struck in vol. 2, 92–93); d’Anville, Mémoire … sur la Chine, 1776, 31.

  72. Castilhon, Considérations, 1769, 234.

  73. See for example Hanway, Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea, 1753, vol. 1, 332–34.

  74. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, 206.

  75. One of the last cautiously sympathetic pronouncements (from 1791): Robertson, Historical Disquisition, 1812, 202.

  76. Winckelmann, History of the Art of Antiquity, 2006, 128–51. On Winckelmann’s influence on how oriental art was viewed, see Mitter, Much Maligned Monsters, 1977, 192ff.

  77. Sonnerat, Voyages aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine, 1782, vol. 2, 23.

  78. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 441; Herder, Outlines, 1800, 298.

  79. Herder, Ideen, 1989, 438; Herder, Outlines, 1800, 296.

  80. This was shown by Ernst Schulin in an investigation that has yet to be superseded: Die weltgeschichtliche Erfassung des Orients bei Hegel und Ranke, 1958, esp. the summary on pp. 137–41; see also Kittsteiner, “Hegels Eurozentrismus in globaler Perspektive,” 2010.

  81. Pigulla, China in der deutschen Weltgeschichtsschreibung, 1996, 155ff.

  82. See Lloyd, Foundations in the Dust, 1989, 12ff.; Rich, Narrative of a Journey to the Site of Babylon, 1839.

  83. Schiller, “Was heißt und zu welchem Ende studiert man Universalgeschichte?,” in Schiller, Sämtliche Werke, 1966, vol. 4, 754; Schiller, “The Nature and Value of Universal History,” 1972, 325.

  84. Gregory, Essays Historical and Moral, 1788, 47.

  85. Murray, Enquiries Historical and Moral, 1808, 412.

  86. See Stocking, Victorian Anthropology, 1987, 19. On the diversity of Enlightenment theories of civilization see Slotkin, Early Anthropology, 1965, 175–460. Among the prominent Scottish authors of the late eighteenth century, Lord Kames came closest to a general theory of human evolution where stages did not play a leading role. See Sebastiani, “Storia universale e teoria stadiale,” 1998, 128.

  87. Kosegarten, Morgenländische Alterthumskunde, 1831; Robertson, Progress of Society in Europe, 1972.

  88. Kosegarten, Morgenländische Altherthumskunde, 1831, 77.

  89. Kosegarten, Morgenländische Altherthumskunde, 1831, 95.

  90. W. Jones, “Fourth Anniversary Discourse, on the Arabs,” in Works, 1807, vol. 3, 50.

  91. See Hourani, Europe and the Middle East, 1980, 32.

  92. Volney, Voyage en Égypte et en Syrie, 1959, 103, 133.

  93. Murray, Enquiries Historical and Moral, 1808, 5.

  94. Burrow’s study remains a classic: Evolution and Society, 1966.

  95. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1811, 204. Fisch, “Der märchenhafte Orient,” 1984, 260–61, had already drawn attention to Marsden as a theorist of civilization.

  96. Meiners, Grundriß der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1793, 29–31.

  97. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 4, also 32.

  98. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 383.

  99. Barrow, Travels in China, 1806, 383.

100. Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy from the Governor General of India to the Court of Ava, 1834, vol. 2, 94–95.

101. Symes, An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, 1800, 330. Also p. 123 on the high degree of civilization attained by the Burmese.

102. Edmund Burke made a stirring case for the coequality of Europe and India in his speech to Fox’s East India Bill of 1783: Burke, India: Madras and Bengal, 1981, esp. 389–90. To the best of my knowledge, the last author who acknowledges Asiatic superiority is Thunberg (writing around 1790). He expresses a general preference for the governmental and social institutions of Japan over their European counterparts: Thunberg, Reise durch einen Theil von Europa, Afrika und Asien, 1794, vol. 2, pt. 1, 213. Later authors were still prepared to concede particular advantages, e.g., the better mental asylums in Turkey: Hammer-Purgstall, Constantinopolis, 1822, vol. 1, 509.

103. Guizot, Histoire de la civilisation en Europe, 1985. On the idea of “civilization” in the nineteenth century see Mazlish, Civilization and Its Contents, 2004; Osterhammel, Transformation of the World, 2014, ch. 17.

104. There are few studies to date on the genesis of the new missionary imperialism. Among the most important is Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire, 1971, ch. 4. What follows is only a preliminary sketch.

105. Condorcet, Esquisse d’un tableau historique, 1988, 268; Condorcet, Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind, 1796, 254.

106. On Grant see Embree, Charles Grant, 1962, 118–17, 156.

107. Dohm, “Nacherinnerungen des Herausgebers,” in Kaempfer, Geschichte und Beschreibung Japans, 1777–79, vol. 2, 422; see also various materials in Kapitza, Japan in Europa, vol. 2, 1990.

108. Colebrooke, Miscellaneous Essays, 1873, vol. 2, 1.

109. See also Barth and Osterhammel, Zivilisierungsmissionen, 2005; Osterhammel, Europe, the “West” and the Civilizing Mission, 2006; and, from a rapidly growing literature on the history of humanitarian intervention: Simms and Trim, Humanitarian Intervention, 2011.

110. See Gong, Standard of “Civilization,” 1984.