China in the German Enlightenment
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Over the course of the eighteenth century, European intellectuals shifted from admiring China as a utopian place of wonder to despising it as a backwards and despotic state. That transformation had little to do with changes in China itself, and everything to do with Enlightenment conceptions of political identity and Europe's own burgeoning global power.
China in the German Enlightenment considers the place of German philosophy, particularly the work of Leibniz, Goethe, Herder, and Hegel, in this development. Beginning with the first English translation of Walter Demel's classic essay "How the Chinese Became Yellow," the collection's essays examine the connections between eighteenth-century philosophy, German Orientalism, and the origins of modern race theory.
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Reviews
'The book collects eight remarkably coherent essays by historians, philosophers, and Germanists... After reading these well-crafted essays, we cannot help feeling the gratification afforded by new historical knowledge.'
'The volume as a whole and each individual essay will inspire future scholarly interest in the German reception of China.'
"This collection of essays by both older and newer voices in Asian-German studies does an excellent job of illuminating both 'the problem of China' and 'the problem of Europe' from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first. It will undoubtedly spur on new and, hopefully, equally productive responses."
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