The Invention of China in Early Modern England: Spelling the Dragon (Early Modern Literature in History) - Softcover

Lux, Jonathan E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3030840344 ISBN 13: 9783030840341

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

Synopsis

The Invention of China in Early Modern England describes how several different English communities became aware of China. It begins by describing how early modern intellectuals used the utopian ideal of China to license all kinds of progressive innovation before chronicling how England’s growing commerce in southeast Asia radically changed China’s representation in the English discourse community. For the new community of English merchants proposing to trade in Chinese goods, China became the seminal example in the growing discourse community of English Orientalism. It was an absolute or arbitrary authoritarian state, associated with crooked business dealings, and cloaked in a rhetoric of secrecy and exclusion―a dangerous exception to the traditions, values, and identities of the emergent English speaking states. Finally, the book points out some of the ways that contemporary English language sources continue to represent this early modern English thought tradition, labelling the complexities of modern China with analytical vocabulary perhaps better suited to the pressing political anxieties of the seventeenth century.  

About this title

About the Author

Jonathan E. Lux, Ph.D. serves with Leadership Development International; he teaches at Tianjin International School, China, and resides with his family in Tianjin.

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3030840344
• ISBN 13: 9783030840341
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 229