Review of 'Ethnicity and Foreigners in Ancient Greece and China', H. J. Kim (Duckworth, London 2009) (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Greek Classics in China: How Shadi Bartsch Misreads Chinese Intellectual History
Global Intellectual History, 2023
Although Bartsch is right that pro-authoritarian voices in China are loud and influential, her narrative of the entire Chinese receptions of the Greek classics is a highly problematic and distorted one. In this review I aim to show that criticizing Athenian democracy is a longstanding intellectual tradition in China, starting immediately after political thinkers’ encounter with Western history and political thought in the late Qing period. However, due to the widely shared assumption that modern democracy is different from its ancient namesake, Chinese intellectuals are able to promote the former without a veneration of the latter. I also question whether grouping all discussions of the Western classics in contemporary China into the “nationalism” label would impede, rather than facilitate, genuine intellectual exchanges between China and the West. In the end, Bartsch’s narrative of Chinese intellectual history strengthens the fearmongering about China in Western societies, at the cost of presenting a sincere engagement with Chinese ideas.
The Role of "Western" Antiquity in G.P. Maffei's Historiae Indicae, Book 6: China
Languages of Science between Western and Eastern Civilizations Herausgegeben von: Carlo Ferrari , Fabio Guidetti und Chiara Ombretta Tommasi, 2024
The paper discusses the degree to which classical references, tropes and stereotypes helped forming the view of China in the early modern age and anchored into a „globalization“ discourse of European Christian literati by analyzing G.P. Maffei’s Historiae Indicae, Book 6.
Horizons, 2014
This essay attempts a comparison between Greek, Roman, and ancient Chinese historiography by looking at the classics of each of the three traditions. In Greece these are the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Polybius; in Rome those of Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus; in China the Book of Documents, the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Zuozhuan (Commentary of Zuo), and Sima Qian's Shiji (Records of the Historian). These texts are subjected to two lines of inquiry. First it will be asked: What is the extent and what is the structure of the field of historical events that each text brings into vision? What is meant here is not simply the set of events treated directly by a certain work but the whole range of historical developments that is evoked by it and in front of which the particular events presented in the foreground are seen and understood. The first part of the essay characterizes the works according to the different forms the "horizon of perception" takes in each of them. The second line of inquiry is concerned with the intended function of each work. In this case, too, a kind of typology comes to the fore, provoking the question as to what extent the horizon of perception and the intended function of these works can be seen as relating to each other. The preoccupation with past events and conditions is a phenomenon found in many societies, possibly forming an anthropological constant. 1 1 This essay is a slightly revised version of my article "Zu Sinnhorizont und Funktion griechischer, römischer und altchinesischer Geschichtsschreibung," published a decade ago in German language. I am grateful for the opportunity of republication in a language more easily accessible to those interested in comparative studies. For help with this language I, once again, have to thank my friend John Drinkwater. The footnotes are limited to references to the primary texts and to more recent English-language secondary literature. For fuller documentation, see the original German article.