Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia

Description

How Enlightenment Europe rediscovered its identity by measuring itself against the great civilizations of Asia During the long eighteenth century, Europe's travelers, scholars, and intellectuals looked to Asia in a spirit of puzzlement, irony, and openness. In this panoramic book, Jurgen Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment'

Jurgen Osterhammel is Distinguished Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS). He is a recipient of the 2017 Toynbee Prize and the 2018 Balzan Prize for Global History. His books include The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (Princeton).

"Brilliant. . . . It takes a book like this to move the debate beyond talking points and open your eyes to a wider context."-Michael Savage, Quillette "[A] remarkably wide-ranging, original and thoroughly scholarly study."-Robert Irwin, Literary Review "Sensible and intelligent."-Joan-Pau Rubies, Times Higher Education "Erudite, original, and lively. Osterhammel defends the Enlightenment from the charge of Eurocentrism and portrays in sparkling detail its humane legacy of self-criticism and communication with other cultures."-Harry Liebersohn, author of The Travelers' World: Europe to the Pacific