Unfabling the East · The Enlightenment's Encounter With Asia by Osterhammel, Jürgen -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Preface I. Introduction: Looking to the East

Asia’s “Decline”—Europe’s Arrogance The Great Map of Mankind The Power of Discourse, the Burden of Learning Sensing and Constructing Difference Spaces Epochs

Pathways of Knowledge

II. Asia and Europe: Borders, Hierarchies, Equilibria

Asia and Europe in the Tsarist Empire The Ottoman Empire: European Great Power or Barbarian at the Gates? Asia: The Preeminent Continent? Character and Encyclopedia European Primacy and Provincialism

III. Changing Perspectives

Cultural Transfer and Colonialism Theories of Ethnocentrism Competition and Comparison Discursive Justice Chinese Interviews, Indian Letters Niebuhr’s Monkey

IV. Traveling

Sir John Malcolm’s Dinner Party A Weeping Mandarin Sea and Land East Asia: Walled Empires South Asia and Southeast Asia: Porous Borders The Near East: A Pilgrimage to Antiquity Adventurers and Renegades Scholars and Administrators

V. Encounters

Ordeals, Disappointments, Catastrophes The Mysterious Mister Manning Interpreters and Dialogues Language Barriers Mimesis and Deception A Sociology of Perception

VI. Eyewitnesses–Earwitnesses: Experiencing Asia

Giants and Unicorns Prejudices and Preconceptions Autopsy Before the Tribunal of Philosophy Methods of the Inquisitive Class Hearing and Hearsay Local Knowledge: Asiatic Scholarship in European Texts

VII. Reporting, Editing, Reading: From Lived Experience to Printed Text

The Travel Account as a Tool of Inquiry Style and Truth Anthologies, Collages, Mega-Narratives The Task of the Translator Topicality and Canonicity Traces of Reading Arts of Reading Fractured Representation

The Present and the Past

Tribal Asia: Attila and the Consequences A Continent of Revolutions Timur: Statesman and Monster Nadir Shah: Comet of War and Patriot Haidar Ali: Tyrant and Enlightened Reformer The Modernization of Political Vulcanism

IX. Savages and Barbarians

Lost Savages Four Types of Barbarism The Roof of the World “Tartary” in Geography, the Philosophy of History, and Ethnography Knights and Strangers in the Crimea The Ethnology and Politics of Arabic Liberty Theories of Nomadism Triumph of the Settlers

X. Real and Unreal Despots

The Heirs of Nero and Solomon Montesquieu Reads Sir John Chardin Despotism and the Philosophy of History “Oriental Despotism” under Suspicion Anquetil-Duperron: The Despot’s New Clothes India: Translatio Despotica Despotism with Chinese Characteristics The Ottoman Empire: Praetorian Guards and Paper Tigers Ex Occidente Lux

XI. Societies

Solidarity among the Civilized Cities Batavia’s Colonial Sociology Close-Up: Urban Life in Syrian Aleppo Slaves Scholars and Aesthetes in Power Castes: Religious Straitjacket or Social Utopia? Feudalism Masks and Emotions The Birth of Sociology from the Spirit of Cultural Difference On Hospitality

XII. Women

The Cardinal Difference In the Realm of the Senses Domesticity Polygamy Labor, Liberty, and Sacrifice Progress and Civilization

XIII. Into a New Age: The Rise of Eurocentrism

Balance and Exclusion From Aladdin’s Cave to Developing Nation Decline, Degeneration, Stagnation From the Theory of Civilization to the Civilizing Mission

Notes Bibliography Index