二十世紀上半葉，人類歷經兩次世界大戰的殘酷洗禮，深感前景茫茫，特別是西方的知識菁英，對於西方文明的前景，更有諸多反思。殷海光翻譯德貝吾（J. G. De Beus）的《西方之未來》一書，正具有向國人介紹這波思想潮流的意義。 本書共分十六章，分為三大部分，對西方文明的探討，層次分明。殷海光指出，德貝吾以歷史發展為經，以世界事象為緯，綜合建構文明發展的一般模型，以探討西方文明之現狀，估量西方文明現有的創造力，進而勾勒未來世界之景象，展望天下一家的可能。殷海光認為，因為德貝吾「採取視域是四進向的：從古至今，從西方世界到東方世界，無不論列」，所以，閱讀本書，「我們不僅得到歷史眼光，而且可以得到世界眼光」，深具意義。 值得一提的是，本書中處處可見殷海光對內容的按語。這些按語，有長有短，如今讀來別有意義，例如第139頁，內文談到西方國家的自由可以應用到東方時，殷海光寫的按語為：「這才是解決東西癥結的高明方法。」其他如：「只有西方的生活方式才能給人類帶來高等的文明。設若全球實行「社會主義」，全人類一定低落而為蜂蟻。現在，我們正立於這一分水嶺上。」「這對於民主之培養，非常重要。」由這些按語，讀者可從中看出臺灣自由主義代表人物殷海光的關懷與專注之處，也可看出他那富有情感的筆法。
Postcolonial studies is attentive to cultural differences, marginalisation and exclusion. Such studies pay equal attention to the lives and conditions of various racial minorities in the West, as well as to regional, indigenous forms of representation around the world as being distinct from a dominant Western tradition. With the consolidation of the field in the past forty years, the need to establish the terms by which we might understand the sources of postcolonial literary history is more urgent now than ever before. The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature is the first major collaborative overview of the field. A mix of geographic and thematic chapters allows for different viewpoints on postcolonial literary history. Chapters cover the most important national traditions, as well as more comparative geographical and thematic frameworks. This major reference work will set the future agenda for the field, whilst also synthesising its development for scholars and students.
The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. These two volumes contain accounts of early seventeenth-century expeditions to Greenland and Hudson's Bay, chiefly under the Danish flag. Although none succeeded in their object, which was to re-establish Danish communication with and commercial exploitation of Greenland, and to find a North-West Passage to Asia, they added greatly to knowledge of the Arctic, and provided maps for future exploration.
