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Sto caricando le informazioni... The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Mindsdi Jonathan D. Spence
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"Jonathan Spence, our foremost historian of Chinese politics and culture, tells us in his new book how the West has understood China over seven centuries. Ranging from Marco Polo's own depiction of China and the mighty Khan, Kublai, in the 1270s to the China sightings of three twentieth-century writers of acknowledged genius - Kafka, Borges, and Calvino - Spence explores Western thought on China through a remarkable array of expression." "Peopling Spence's account are Iberian adventurers, the great Jesuit missionaries, Enlightenment synthesizers including Voltaire and Montesquieu, spinners of the dreamy cult of Chinoiserie, American observers such as Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Ezra Pound, and Eugene O'Neill, and diplomats from Britain's Lord Macartney to Henry Kissinger. Their visions are alternately coarse and subtle, generous and vicious, sober and exotic. Taken together they tell us as much about the self-image of the West as about China."--Jacket. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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I found the result fascinating. Obviously, it is a must for those interested in Chinese-Western relations, or, more generally, in (mis)communication and propaganda among varying cultures.
Beyond that, I found it a very salutary book, even if I had no interest in either topic. In reading these accounts, one gets a profound sense of how our understanding of current events and history are shaped. How does one select truths among mutually conflicting testimony, or tease out the nuances of changes in a culture over time? And how does one learn to resist the allure of seeing large groups of people as a homogeneous monolith?
My one complaint is the handling of the notes. Who on earth decided that it was a good idea to use the title (but not the number) of chapters as a running title, and then use only the chapter number to label the notes? This seems to be a very common, if counterproductive convention. Unless one is better at remember the number of the chapter that one is reading than I am, one ends up constantly flipping back to the beginning of the chapter so that one can figure out what notes one is on! I keep hoping that if people complain often enough, publishers will get a clue. ( )