Orientalism in Louis XIV's France

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OUP Oxford, Jul 2, 2009 - History - 301 pages
Before the Enlightenment, and before the imperialism of the later eighteenth century, how did European readers find out about the varied cultures of Asia? Orientalism in Louis XIV's France presents a history of Oriental studies in seventeenth-century France, mapping the place within the intellectual culture of the period that was given to studies of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Chinese texts, as well as writings on Mughal India. The Orientalist writers studied here produced books that would become sources used throughout the eighteenth century. Nicholas Dew places these scholars in their own context as members of the "republic of letters" in the age of the scientific revolution and the early Enlightenment.
 

Contents

Baroque Orientalism
1
1 Barthélemy dHerbelot and the Place of Oriental Learning
41
The Geographic Projects of Melchisédech Thévenot
81
François Berniers Geography of Knowledge
131
4 The Making of dHerbelots Bibliothèque orientale
168
5 Printing Confucius in Paris
205
Epilogue
234
Bibliography
245
Index
291
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About the author (2009)

Nicholas Dew is Assistant Professor of History at McGill University, in Montreal. He is the co-editor, with James Delbourgo, of Science and Empire in the Atlantic World (Routledge, 2008).