Unfabling the East : The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia

Resumen del libro

How Enlightenment Europe rediscovered its identity by measuring itself against the great civilizations of AsiaDuring the long eighteenth century, Europe's travelers, scholars, and intellectuals looked to Asia in a spirit of puzzlement, irony, and openness. In this panoramic book, Jurgen Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment's nuanced encounter with the great civilizations of the East, from the Ottoman Empire and India to China and Japan. He shows how major figures such as Leibniz, Voltaire, and Gibbon took a keen interest in Asian culture and challenges the notion that Europe's formative engagement with the non-European world was invariably marred by an imperial gaze and presumptions of Western superiority.

A momentous work by one of Europe's most eminent historians, Unfabling the East brings the sights and sounds of this tumultuous age vividly to life. It takes readers on a thrilling voyage to the farthest shores, bringing back vital insights for our own multicultural age.

Biografía del autor

Jürgen Osterhammel es profesor de Historia moderna y contemporánea en la Universidad de Konstanz, Alemania. Es autor de El vuelo del águila (Crítica, 2018), coautor junto a Niels P. Petersson de Geschichte der Globalisierung (2003) y coeditor, junto a Akira Iriye, del ambicioso proyecto Geschichte der Welt, que terminaron en 2016. Por su labor como investigador, recibió en 2010 el Leibniz-Preis y en 2012 el Gerda Henkel Preis; en 2014 le otorgaron el Sigmund-Freud-Preis de prosa académica; en 2017 recibió el Toynbee Prize por su labor en el estudio de la Historia global y, en 2018, el Premio Balzan de Historia global.