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The Comparative History of a Genre: The production and circulation of books on travel and ethnographies in early modern Europe and China*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2015

JOAN-PAU RUBIÉS  and
MANEL OLLÉ
JOAN-PAU RUBIÉS
Affiliation:
ICREA-Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain Email: [email protected]
MANEL OLLÉ
Affiliation:
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Contrary to the long-standing idea of a scientific failure in early modern China as compared to Europe, some recent work has emphasized the existence of a tradition of ‘evidential’ research in the natural sciences, antiquarianism, and geography, especially during the Sung, Ming, and Qing periods. This article seeks to develop this new perspective by offering a comparative history of the genres of travel writing and ethnography in early modern Europe and Ming/early Qing China. We argue that there were qualitative as well as quantitative differences in the way that these genres functioned in each cultural area. Even when we find apparent similarities, we note different chronological rhythms and a different position of these genres of travel writing within a wider cultural field—what we might term their ‘cultural relevance’. The specific nature of Chinese state imperialism—or, conversely, the particular nature of European overseas colonialism—played a role in determining the type of ethnographic approach that came to predominate in each cultural area. These parallels and differences suggest a fresh perspective on the cultural origins of the ‘great divergence’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 259 - 309
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Originally presented at the British Academy conference, ‘The Production and Circulation of Printed Books in the Occident and Orient, from the Accession of the Tang Dynasty (circa 618) to the First Industrial Revolution’, London, February 2013. We are grateful to Patrick O'Brien, Ashley Millar, and two anonymous readers for their comments.

References

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45 Brook, Confusions of Pleasure, pp. 129–171. Also Brokaw, Cynthia J. and Kai-Wing, Chow (eds) (2005), Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China (Oakland: University of California Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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59 The rediscovery in the 1970s in the Beijing Library of the complete manuscripts of Xu Xiake's traveloges in Ji Mengliang's copy has created the opportunity for a new wave of editions and analysis which have contributed to the further canonization of the author. In 1980 Zhu Shaotang and Wu Yingshou carried on the reorganization and editing of the text, and so far three volumes have appeared (Xu Xiake youji 徐霞客游记, Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 1980). Note also the translated anthologies in English: Chi, Li (1974), The Travel Diaries of Hsu Hsia-k'o (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press of Hong Kong);Google Scholar and in French: Xiake, Xu (1993), Randonnés aux sites sublimes, traduït du chinois, presenté et annoté par Jacques Dars (Paris: Gallimard).Google Scholar Julian Ward also published an analysis of Xu Xiake's travel writing—with some translated excerpts—that emphasizes his literary values: Julian, Ward (2001), Xu Xiake (1587–1641): the art of travel writing (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press).Google Scholar

60 See Stevan, Harrell (ed.) (1995), Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle: University of Washington Press)Google Scholar. Harrell's introduction to this edited collection, a theoretical essay on the civilizing projects that framed much of Chinese writing on the frontiers, has played a seminal role in the wave of new approaches to the ethnographic dimension of late Ming and early Qing travel writing. Recently, several scholars have analysed Ming and Qing writing about frontier peoples: Emma Teng on Taiwan; Steven B. Miles, Laura Hostetler, Leo Shin, and Norma Diamond on Guanxi and Guizhou; Peter Perdue and J.L. Newby on Xinjiang and Mongolia; and Roderich Ptak on Maritime Asia (see also note 4 above). For a discussion, see Miles, Steven B. (2006), ‘Strange encounters on the Cantonese frontier: region and gender in Kuang Lu's (1604–1650) Chiya’, Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China, 8, pp. 115–155CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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66 Teng, Taiwan's Imagined Geography, p. 9.

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70 John N. Crossley has recently argued that the illustrations in the Boxer Codex were influenced by a sixteenth-century Book of Hours recently discovered at the University of Santo Tomás in Manila. He also surmises that this Book of Hours may have belonged to the wife of Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas, who died before he left Spain: Crossley, John N. (2013), ‘The religiosity of Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas, governor-general of the Philippines, 1590–1593’, Philippiniana Sacra, 48:144, pp. 241–252Google Scholar.

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74 An example of this revisionism is the popular synthesis by Dominique, Lelièvre (2004), Voyageurs Chinois. À la découverte du Monde (Geneva: Olizane)Google Scholar.

75 Jean-Marc, Besse (2003), Les grandeurs de la Terre. Aspects du savoir géographique à la Renaissance (Lyon: ENS Éditions)Google Scholar.

76 See, in this respect, Teng's excellent analysis of Qing travel narratives dealing with Taiwan. As she notes, the genre was clearly connected to a multi-ethnic imperialist project which assumed that the best thing for the natives would be to become ‘civilized’ (as well as providers of tribute and services), usually by adopting Chinese customs. However, the genre also included a certain element of self-refection that could, at times, question the universality of Chinese norms. See Teng, Taiwan's Imagined Geography, pp. 20–21.

77 Brook, Confusions of Pleasure, p. 120. The minister responsible was Liu Daxia, in a peculiar moment of extreme anti-maritime feeling.

78 Carlo, Ginzburg (1980), The Cheese and the Worms. The cosmos of a sixteenth-century miller (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), pp. 41–49Google Scholar; Charles, Moseley (1974), ‘The metamorphoses of Sir John Mandeville’, Yearbook of English Studies, 4, pp. 5–25Google Scholar.

79 We expand this argument in Joan-Pau, Rubiés (2012), ‘From the history of travayle to the history of travel collections: the rise of an early modern genre’, in Carey, D. and Jowitt, C. (eds) Richard Hakluyt and Travel Writing in Early Modern Europe (Farnham: Ashgate/Hakluyt Society Extra Series), pp. 25–41Google Scholar.

80 Compare Joanna, Waley-Cohen (1999), The Sextants of Beijing (New York: Norton), pp. 105–114Google Scholar, with the sober assessment in Elman, On Their Own Terms, pp. 107–221.

81 Ibid., pp. 220–221.