China in European Encyclopaedias, 1700-1850
China in European Encyclopaedias, 1700-1850

Author: Georg Lehner

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-05-10

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9004206981

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This book shows how knowledge about China became part of European general knowledge. It examines English, French, and German encyclopaedias published between 1700 and 1850 and explores the use and presentation of information on China in works of general knowledge. The first chapters explore the origins of early European perceptions of China until 1850, the development of European encyclopaedias, and the sources used for entries on China. The second major part of the book examines the ways in which encyclopaedias presented information on things Chinese (geography, government, economy, history, language and literature, arts and sciences) and how this information was shaped, expanded, perpetuated, revised, and updated.

Ordering the World in the Eighteenth Century
Ordering the World in the Eighteenth Century

Author: Frank O'Gorman

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2005-12-14

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0230518885

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The Eighteenth century is often represented, applying Tom Paine's phrase, as 'The Age of Reason': an age when progressive ideals triumphed over autocracy and obscurantism, and when notions of order and balance shaped consciousness in every sphere of human knowledge. Yet the debates which surrounded the development of Eighteenth-century thought were always open to troubling doubts. Was nature itself truly an ordered entity, as Newton had argued, or was it a mass of chaotic, randomly moving atoms, as some materialist thinkers believed? This book explores the tensions and conflicts in these debates through a series of interdisciplinary essays from leading international scholars, each challenging the idea that the Eighteenth century was an age of order.