Western Visions of the Far East in a Transpacific Age, 1522-1657

This collection of essays provides an array of cross-disciplinary perspectives on how Western Europeans made sense of the Far East, largely dominated by Chinese culture, prior to British and Dutch colonialism. To that end, they focus on the period between 1522 and 1657. The editor, Christina Lee (Spanish and Portuguese, Princeton U.), argues in her introduction that these perspectives differed from the Orientalism of later English and French writers during the Enlightenment, and avoid the worst of its sinophilic/phobic fetishizing. Organization is in three sections, the first exploring how cartography and literature provided the field for imagining East Asia. The second turns to European travel journals and their portrayal of China and Japan, most focusing on accounts by missionaries. The third part switches from Europeans in East Asia to Japanese and Chinese migrants and visitors in Europe. The contributors are professors and scholars of art history, romance languages and literature, philology, and Church history. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Christina H. Lee is Research Scholar with Continuing Appointment in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Princeton University, USA.