Für diesen Artikel ist leider kein Bild verfügbar.

Imagined Civilizations

China, the West, and Their First Encounter

(Autor)

Buch | Hardcover
384 Seiten
2013
Johns Hopkins University Press (Verlag)
978-1-4214-0606-0 (ISBN)
62,35 inkl. MwSt
Accounts of the seventeenth-century Jesuit Mission to China have often celebrated it as the great encounter of two civilizations. The Jesuits portrayed themselves as wise men from the West who used mathematics and science in service of their mission. Chinese literati-official Xu Guangqi (1562-1633), who collaborated with the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) to translate Euclid's Elements into Chinese, reportedly recognized the superiority of Western mathematics and science and converted to Christianity. Most narratives relegate Xu and the Chinese to subsidiary roles as the Jesuits' translators, followers, and converts. Imagined Civilizations tells the story from the Chinese point of view. Using Chinese primary sources, Roger Hart focuses in particular on Xu, who was in a position of considerable power over Ricci. The result is a perspective startlingly different from that found in previous studies. Hart analyzes Chinese mathematical treatises of the period, revealing that Xu and his collaborators could not have believed their declaration of the superiority of Western mathematics. Imagined Civilizations explains how Xu's West served as a crucial resource.
While the Jesuits claimed Xu as a convert, he presented the Jesuits as men from afar who had traveled from the West to China to serve the emperor.

Roger Hart is Director of the Confucius Institute and an associate professor of history at Texas Southern University. He has received fellowships from ACLS, NEH, and Mellon. Previous appointments include Seoul National University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Chicago, Institute for Advanced Study, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Harvard. He is author of The Chinese Roots of Linear Algebra, also published by Johns Hopkins.

1. Introduction
2. Science as the Measure of Civilizations
3. From Copula to Incommensurable Worlds
4. Mathematical Texts in Historical Context
5. Tracing Practices Purloined by the Three Pillars
6. Xu Guangqi, Grand Guardian
7. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Appendix A: Zhu Zaiyu's New Theory of Calculation
Appendix B: Xu Guangqi's Right Triangles, Meanings
Appendix C: Xu Guangqi's Writings
Bibliography
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag 10.10.2013
Zusatzinfo 2 Line drawings, black and white; 15 Halftones, black and white
Verlagsort Baltimore, MD
Sprache englisch
Maße 156 x 235 mm
Gewicht 680 g
Themenwelt Geisteswissenschaften Geschichte Regional- / Ländergeschichte
Mathematik / Informatik Mathematik Geschichte der Mathematik
ISBN-10 1-4214-0606-3 / 1421406063
ISBN-13 978-1-4214-0606-0 / 9781421406060
Zustand Neuware
Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt?
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
Besichtigung einer Epoche

von Karl Schlögel

Buch | Hardcover (2023)
Carl Hanser (Verlag)
45,00
der Kaiser, dem die Welt zerbrach

von Heinz Schilling

Buch | Hardcover (2023)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
34,00