Most people suppose that the whole world knows what it is to love; that romantic love is universal, quintessentially human. Such a supposition has to be able to meet three challenges. It has to justify its underlying assumption that all cultures mean the same thing by the word ‘love’ regardless of language. It has to engage with the scholarly debate on whether or not romantic love was invented in Europe and is uniquely Western. And it must be able to explain why early twentieth-century Chinese writers claimed that they had never known true love, or love by modern Western standards. By addressing these three challenges through a literary, historical, philosophical, biographical and above all comparative approach, this highly original work shows how love’s profile in China shifted with the rejection of arranged marriages and concubinage in favour of free individual choice, monogamy and a Western model of romantic love. 名人推薦 ‘This book, Lynn Pan’s best to date, adds a wonderful new an
本書涵蓋了二千年的中西交通史蹟與文化交流(含思想、藝術、宗教等層面)﹐闡明中國古代交通概況﹑元代西征﹑馬可孛羅東來﹑十五至十八世紀交通大事紀﹐以及清代鴉片戰爭交通大開之情狀﹐是為史學領域之專門學問。並收錄十六幅珍貴圖稿﹐如﹕古代亞洲圖(採自夏德大秦國全錄)﹑唐宋時代中西海上交通圖(採自馮攸譯唐宋元中西交通商史)﹑馬可孛羅行程圖(採自M. N. Penzer: The Most Noble and Famous Travels of Polo)﹑南京條約簽字圖(採自中國通商圖/The Chater Collection)以響讀者。