The Image of China in Western Social and Political Thought

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. David Martin Jones examines how China has been portrayed in European and subsequently North American social and political thought and what, if anything, this depiction tells us about the character of this thought. Such a question immediately evokes the spectre of orientalism and subsequent chapters explore whether the identification of an orientalist project invalidates the knowledge claims of European and North American social and political thought as it evolved from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. This text examines how China has been portrayed in European and subsequently North American social and political thought and what, if anything, this depiction tells us about the character of this thought. Such a question immediately evokes the spectre of orientalism and subsequent chapters explore whether the identification of an orientalist project invalidates the knowledge claims of European and North American social and political thought as it evolved from the 18th to the 20th century This book examines how China has been portrayed in European and North American social and political thought. Such a question immediately evokes the spectre of orientalism and subsequent chapters explore whether the identification of an orientalist project invalidates the knowledge claims of European and North American social and political thought as it evolved from the 18th to the 20th century.
In this text, the author examines how China has been portrayed in European and subsequently North American social and political thought and what, if anything, this depiction tells us about the character of this thought It is only from the seventeenth century that we can identify the beginnings of a continuous European engagement with China and the Asia-Pacific littoral.