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The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds
"Like everything else written by Jonathan Spence, The Chan's Great Continent is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in China. Spence is one of the greatest Sinologists of our time, and his work is both authoritative and highly readable." ― Los Angeles Times Book Review China has transfixed the West since the earliest contacts between these civilizations. With his characteristic elegance and insight, Jonathan Spence explores how the West has understood China over seven centuries. Ranging from Marco Polo's own depiction of China and the mighty Khan, Kublai, in the 1270s to the China sightings of three twentieth-century writers of acknowledged genius-Kafka, Borges, and Calvino-Spence conveys Western thought on China through a remarkable array of expression. Peopling Spence's account are Iberian adventurers, Enlightenment thinkers, spinners of the dreamy cult of Chinoiserie, and American observers such as Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Ezra Pound, and Eugene O'Neill. Taken together, these China sightings tell us as much about the self-image of the West as about China. "Wonderful. . . . Spence brilliantly demonstrates [how] generation after generation of Westerners [have] asked themselves, 'What is it . . . that held this astonishing, diverse, and immensely populous land together?' "-- New York Times Book Review
302 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
About the author
Jonathan D. Spence
69 books264 followersJonathan D. Spence is a historian specializing in Chinese history. His self-selected Chinese name is Shǐ Jǐngqiān (simplified Chinese: 史景迁; traditional Chinese: 史景遷), which roughly translates to "A historian who admires Sima Qian."
He has been Sterling Professor of History at Yale University since 1993. His most famous book is The Search for Modern China, which has become one of the standard texts on the last several hundred years of Chinese history.
He has been Sterling Professor of History at Yale University since 1993. His most famous book is The Search for Modern China, which has become one of the standard texts on the last several hundred years of Chinese history.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
December 13, 2012
This book started really well, I thought his look at the early Western writing on China, starting with the Jesuits and moving on to the embassies was quite interesting. However once the book hit the 19th century it seemed to loose coherence and I wasn't entirely sure why he picked the examples he did, and why he ignored much of what he did. Spence writes popular history books about China, however you'd need a grasp of what was going on in the history to know the background of events being written about. He also used primarily secondary sources, quoting people quoting the books, which seemed particularly odd as he was using English language sources. It was disappointing that so much of the latter chapters focused on the fictional accounts of China, and ignored any of the actual meeting between cultures. For me I think the most impressive chapter was the one looking at women missionaries in China, who embraced the culture or rejected it outright. It was moving to read accounts of people that were killed in the Boxer uprising and unlike a lot of the fiction based chapters gave an actual feel for interaction between cultures. This book was ok, though I think Barnes, and Barrett, did the same thing much better.
November 27, 2017
The Great Wall is a Mirror
Jonathan Spence's work on China is amazingly erudite and interesting. I have never read a bad book by him. This one is no exception. Though it is about China in one sense, it really concerns the reflection of China in the eyes of the West. From Marco Polo to Kafka, Borges and Calvino, Westerners have looked at China with fascination, but what they wrote about it mirrors either what they wanted to see or what their own culture predisposed them to see. Spence does not really say so, but it seems to me that this is natural for any people---if we examined Chinese writings on the West or Islamic writings on Southeast Asia for example---we would find the same trend. Anthropologists spend a lifetime trying to get beyond their own cultural concerns and prejudices but often fail. So, on our smoothly written and well-researched journey from the 13th century at Kublai Khan's court to the discourse on oriental despotism by Wittfogel in the 1950s, we run across numerous instances of travelers, writers, missionaries, soldiers, and merchants (not forgetting such philosophers as Liebniz and Montesquieu) who gazed at China--up close, from afar, or at the Chinese in their midst--and came to conclusions that, in the end, reflected themselves more than China itself. Only a few spoke Chinese or had access to Chinese people. Many tried to describe China for their readers, but it more than once reminded me of the Indian story about six blind men describing an elephant by touch. Others tried to draw moral lessons, or add their views to overarching theories of politics or human existence. All in all, it's a fascinating compilation of the history of Western knowledge about China, such a large chunk of the human race. It's also a monument to, not the Western, but the human predilection for summarizing, trying to collect disparate facts and amalgamate all of them into a single viewpoint. It seems to me that when you try to do this, you wind up with a mirror in which the main sight is your own face. China, for example, remains far more than the sum of what Westerners wrote about it. This is really a good book.
Jonathan Spence's work on China is amazingly erudite and interesting. I have never read a bad book by him. This one is no exception. Though it is about China in one sense, it really concerns the reflection of China in the eyes of the West. From Marco Polo to Kafka, Borges and Calvino, Westerners have looked at China with fascination, but what they wrote about it mirrors either what they wanted to see or what their own culture predisposed them to see. Spence does not really say so, but it seems to me that this is natural for any people---if we examined Chinese writings on the West or Islamic writings on Southeast Asia for example---we would find the same trend. Anthropologists spend a lifetime trying to get beyond their own cultural concerns and prejudices but often fail. So, on our smoothly written and well-researched journey from the 13th century at Kublai Khan's court to the discourse on oriental despotism by Wittfogel in the 1950s, we run across numerous instances of travelers, writers, missionaries, soldiers, and merchants (not forgetting such philosophers as Liebniz and Montesquieu) who gazed at China--up close, from afar, or at the Chinese in their midst--and came to conclusions that, in the end, reflected themselves more than China itself. Only a few spoke Chinese or had access to Chinese people. Many tried to describe China for their readers, but it more than once reminded me of the Indian story about six blind men describing an elephant by touch. Others tried to draw moral lessons, or add their views to overarching theories of politics or human existence. All in all, it's a fascinating compilation of the history of Western knowledge about China, such a large chunk of the human race. It's also a monument to, not the Western, but the human predilection for summarizing, trying to collect disparate facts and amalgamate all of them into a single viewpoint. It seems to me that when you try to do this, you wind up with a mirror in which the main sight is your own face. China, for example, remains far more than the sum of what Westerners wrote about it. This is really a good book.
July 25, 2015
Super interesting. It's divided by periods, starting from Marco Polo and his less-known predecessors and contemporaries, and deals with adventurers, explorers, merchants, missionaries and writers like Pierre Loti and Kafka. It's hard to put down, really, very accessible, funny too, although there is a lot of terrifying stuff. I didn't realize that China was so idealized by European intellectuals prior to the 19th century, but then when you think about all the chinoiserie, kiosks, pavilions, vases, yeah, absolutely - and it wasn't only art and fashion.
My fav person writing about China was a Spanish Dominican named Domingo Navarrete who, when Jesuits demanded an examination of his Tratados on China, marched to the office of the Inquisition with the book under his arm and suggested they burn both him and his work in the public square.
My fav person writing about China was a Spanish Dominican named Domingo Navarrete who, when Jesuits demanded an examination of his Tratados on China, marched to the office of the Inquisition with the book under his arm and suggested they burn both him and his work in the public square.
June 17, 2022
历史学家史景迁的这部著作向人们展示了从马可波罗起的500多年间西方人对中国的看法。在西方人眼里，中国一直神秘，渴望去了解。与此同时，中国人又似乎是矜持的，总是难于被了解，这样状况一直到今天。但本书的最后，作者说：中国完全无须改变自己以迎合西方。其潜在的意思应该是中国曾为了迎合西方做改变，可能把握并不好，有点弄巧成拙了，保持自己就好。然而西方人记叙的中国并非空穴来风，有误解的内容，但大多都是中国人确实存在的问题，有些随着时代的变迁已经变了，但仍然有不少现代中国人也看不下去，改变是必须的。
西方人开始较多地认识中国人始于元朝，那时蒙古人的征服行动给西方留下了负面的影响，但作为贸易交流，蒙古却真正开启了全球化时代，加上中世纪西方对宗教信仰的痴迷，大量的交往由此展开，后来由于欧洲黑死病以及蒙古人的垮台而中止。从此作为商人出身的马可波罗所描绘的中国情况，不管其真实性如何，却一直激发着西方人探索的欲望，哥伦布就是受其影响开始了远航的，当然他的目的是商机。很可惜哥伦布的船航行到了新大陆，西方与中国的交往失之交臂。再往后，直到葡萄人登上澳门那一刻，西方真正开始了与中国的深入交往。有关中国的信息越来越细致地介绍给了西方，象妇女缠足习俗、中文的特点、饮茶等开始被西方人所认识。利玛窦也就在这之后将天主教引入到了中国，西方文化开始影响中国，但他也发现仅处于原始迷信阶段的佛教、由占星术主导大大小小的日常生活、对祖先的崇拜使得中国人难以建立一套逻辑体系，可能这是之后中国在与外界交往时擅长复制，缺乏创造的根源之一。
随着明朝灭亡，清朝相对开放，西方人与中国人的接触更加深入，他们实地考察所带回去的报告却大不相同，来自大英帝国的乔治·安生对中国是相当不认同，比如他认为中国人在欺诈、造假、揩��水上等这些事上的天分以及随机应变的能力，根本不是外国人所能理解的。关于美术，安生发现，中国人在艺术上的缺陷，是由他们的个性造成，因为他们缺乏崇尚与精神层面的东西。关于中国的文字，他认为不仅难以记忆，也不易写作，阅读时，更无法尽解其意，须以口传面授的方式代代延续。安生的记录影响了后来的西方人，甚至使得中国人与西方人的交往开始出现裂痕。
十七世纪欧洲进入理性时代，一批思想家登上历史舞台，他们开始对中国进行深入的思考，莱布尼茨、孟德斯鸠、伏尔泰、赫尔德等都对中国进行了系统的思考，并留下了专著述及。但是随着思考的深入，他们对中国的认可度不断降低，这些是否影响了西方人对中国人的认识呢？莱布尼茨曾赞美中国人的道德优越，中国人的纪律、服从以及类似孝道这些价值观都得到了高度发展，但这些又可能带来中国人行为模式的奴性；中国人在历史、评论或哲学方面未充分发展正反映了这些特征。孟德斯鸠将政府分为三大类：分别为君主制、专制及共和制。这三种制度的治理方式分别为荣誉、恐惧以及诉诸道德的小规模政府，而中国社会没有荣誉与道德。中国社会还将宗教、法律、风俗、礼仪混为一谈，本来的四股力量变成了一种仪式，不问为什么，倾尽一生身体力行，在仪式下的道德学习相比于中文的诗书学习就轻而易举多了。伏尔泰实际给中国的定位非常高，但他后来发现，中国人不重视西方历史，他们对自身历史文物却盲目的崇拜，以致所有古老的东西都是好的，加之中文本身的晦涩难懂，使得中国人虽然在艺术与科学上投入不小，但进步有限。赫尔德尤其抨击中国的文字，大处马虎，小处讲究正是这种语言的最佳写照，而事物真正的意义和功能已没有存在的空间。
到了19世纪后期，西方人开始在自己的国家看中国人，那时的中国已经明显落后，中国人为了追求新生活，开始跨洋出海欧，同时在中国生活的西方人也将中国的文化带回到西方。中国人在当地建立的中国城。然而在西方人眼里，中国城是脏乱差的象征。不管是马克·吐温，还是后来的杰克·伦敦，在他们的著作中都得中国人有相当负面的评价。在当时有关中国的小说里，中国人普遍被描绘得富于心机、危险、不可靠、邪恶。倒是从中国回去的西方人，将中国的风情带到了当地，中国的蚕丝、瓷器、寺庙体现了中国的细致和优雅，中国人的碑文化、诗词都受到追捧。在二十世纪的早期，法国人在迷恋中国风情上独领风骚。也就在这一时期，中国最早一批革命者来到了这里，最早接触到了共产党的信念，他们成了中国后来改朝换代的先锋力量。而此时的美国，由于义和团之乱的原因，开始对中国产生了一种强烈的道德责任感，他们通过基督教会投入大量资金，赞助中国的医药及教育设备，并支持中国民主制度的发展。在这时的美国也出现了不少颂扬中国文化的著作。到了赛珍珠时，则将中国最主要的特色，对准了那些最平凡、最不起眼的老百姓，她的小说大地讲述了中国最普通百姓的生活。伴随着这拨中国风情影响，美国对中国人的看法或许更加丰富起来。
二十世纪20年代后，中国开始发生着剧烈的变化，在西方人的笔下有革命英雄、有革命纪律、也有革命情操，一切都显得缥缈虚幻。共产党组织和毛泽东的形象被斯诺介绍给了西方。这支激进的力量面对困难，显得相当快乐，西方人正在等待举世欢腾的新中国到来。相比于这些赞美的介绍，魏复古的东方专制主义专著则对中国专制社会的漫长历史进行了严厉的批判，在西方产生了巨大的影响，专制体制受到西方一致反感。
迄今为西方撰写的有关中国的著作不断，中国人在西方人的眼里也越来越透明了，但是中国人自己怎么看呢？
西方人开始较多地认识中国人始于元朝，那时蒙古人的征服行动给西方留下了负面的影响，但作为贸易交流，蒙古却真正开启了全球化时代，加上中世纪西方对宗教信仰的痴迷，大量的交往由此展开，后来由于欧洲黑死病以及蒙古人的垮台而中止。从此作为商人出身的马可波罗所描绘的中国情况，不管其真实性如何，却一直激发着西方人探索的欲望，哥伦布就是受其影响开始了远航的，当然他的目的是商机。很可惜哥伦布的船航行到了新大陆，西方与中国的交往失之交臂。再往后，直到葡萄人登上澳门那一刻，西方真正开始了与中国的深入交往。有关中国的信息越来越细致地介绍给了西方，象妇女缠足习俗、中文的特点、饮茶等开始被西方人所认识。利玛窦也就在这之后将天主教引入到了中国，西方文化开始影响中国，但他也发现仅处于原始迷信阶段的佛教、由占星术主导大大小小的日常生活、对祖先的崇拜使得中国人难以建立一套逻辑体系，可能这是之后中国在与外界交往时擅长复制，缺乏创造的根源之一。
随着明朝灭亡，清朝相对开放，西方人与中国人的接触更加深入，他们实地考察所带回去的报告却大不相同，来自大英帝国的乔治·安生对中国是相当不认同，比如他认为中国人在欺诈、造假、揩��水上等这些事上的天分以及随机应变的能力，根本不是外国人所能理解的。关于美术，安生发现，中国人在艺术上的缺陷，是由他们的个性造成，因为他们缺乏崇尚与精神层面的东西。关于中国的文字，他认为不仅难以记忆，也不易写作，阅读时，更无法尽解其意，须以口传面授的方式代代延续。安生的记录影响了后来的西方人，甚至使得中国人与西方人的交往开始出现裂痕。
十七世纪欧洲进入理性时代，一批思想家登上历史舞台，他们开始对中国进行深入的思考，莱布尼茨、孟德斯鸠、伏尔泰、赫尔德等都对中国进行了系统的思考，并留下了专著述及。但是随着思考的深入，他们对中国的认可度不断降低，这些是否影响了西方人对中国人的认识呢？莱布尼茨曾赞美中国人的道德优越，中国人的纪律、服从以及类似孝道这些价值观都得到了高度发展，但这些又可能带来中国人行为模式的奴性；中国人在历史、评论或哲学方面未充分发展正反映了这些特征。孟德斯鸠将政府分为三大类：分别为君主制、专制及共和制。这三种制度的治理方式分别为荣誉、恐惧以及诉诸道德的小规模政府，而中国社会没有荣誉与道德。中国社会还将宗教、法律、风俗、礼仪混为一谈，本来的四股力量变成了一种仪式，不问为什么，倾尽一生身体力行，在仪式下的道德学习相比于中文的诗书学习就轻而易举多了。伏尔泰实际给中国的定位非常高，但他后来发现，中国人不重视西方历史，他们对自身历史文物却盲目的崇拜，以致所有古老的东西都是好的，加之中文本身的晦涩难懂，使得中国人虽然在艺术与科学上投入不小，但进步有限。赫尔德尤其抨击中国的文字，大处马虎，小处讲究正是这种语言的最佳写照，而事物真正的意义和功能已没有存在的空间。
到了19世纪后期，西方人开始在自己的国家看中国人，那时的中国已经明显落后，中国人为了追求新生活，开始跨洋出海欧，同时在中国生活的西方人也将中国的文化带回到西方。中国人在当地建立的中国城。然而在西方人眼里，中国城是脏乱差的象征。不管是马克·吐温，还是后来的杰克·伦敦，在他们的著作中都得中国人有相当负面的评价。在当时有关中国的小说里，中国人普遍被描绘得富于心机、危险、不可靠、邪恶。倒是从中国回去的西方人，将中国的风情带到了当地，中国的蚕丝、瓷器、寺庙体现了中国的细致和优雅，中国人的碑文化、诗词都受到追捧。在二十世纪的早期，法国人在迷恋中国风情上独领风骚。也就在这一时期，中国最早一批革命者来到了这里，最早接触到了共产党的信念，他们成了中国后来改朝换代的先锋力量。而此时的美国，由于义和团之乱的原因，开始对中国产生了一种强烈的道德责任感，他们通过基督教会投入大量资金，赞助中国的医药及教育设备，并支持中国民主制度的发展。在这时的美国也出现了不少颂扬中国文化的著作。到了赛珍珠时，则将中国最主要的特色，对准了那些最平凡、最不起眼的老百姓，她的小说大地讲述了中国最普通百姓的生活。伴随着这拨中国风情影响，美国对中国人的看法或许更加丰富起来。
二十世纪20年代后，中国开始发生着剧烈的变化，在西方人的笔下有革命英雄、有革命纪律、也有革命情操，一切都显得缥缈虚幻。共产党组织和毛泽东的形象被斯诺介绍给了西方。这支激进的力量面对困难，显得相当快乐，西方人正在等待举世欢腾的新中国到来。相比于这些赞美的介绍，魏复古的东方专制主义专著则对中国专制社会的漫长历史进行了严厉的批判，在西方产生了巨大的影响，专制体制受到西方一致反感。
迄今为西方撰写的有关中国的著作不断，中国人在西方人的眼里也越来越透明了，但是中国人自己怎么看呢？
May 7, 2022
Definitely a well researched book, but it is also a dull book to read. It covers Western works talking of China, Chinese people, culture, and politics. From Marco Polo till today. From priests in Ming Dynasty to novelists like Kafka.
Actually this is a smart idea to generate a book. But:
1, it lacks something coherent when the book moves from one writer to another, with a rapidly shifting talking points. I may read a page about Nixon meeting Mao and next page it talks about a novel imagining the life of Qin Shihuang.
2, the book used way too many quotations and many whole paragraphs of original docs. So it makes the reading very tough to follow. And it won't let you learn much when you dredge through those pages after pages of original poems and novels and various artistically written stuff.
At least half of this book reads not like a history book at all, but like a literature analysis or appreciation course material.
I have to find its Chinese version to help finish the reading.
Actually this is a smart idea to generate a book. But:
1, it lacks something coherent when the book moves from one writer to another, with a rapidly shifting talking points. I may read a page about Nixon meeting Mao and next page it talks about a novel imagining the life of Qin Shihuang.
2, the book used way too many quotations and many whole paragraphs of original docs. So it makes the reading very tough to follow. And it won't let you learn much when you dredge through those pages after pages of original poems and novels and various artistically written stuff.
At least half of this book reads not like a history book at all, but like a literature analysis or appreciation course material.
I have to find its Chinese version to help finish the reading.
September 21, 2013
I love the approach he takes with this book. The various western perspectives if China, and the beliefs and experiences that led to them, are explained and examined. Excellent, intelligent writing.
February 25, 2018
I really could have used this book back when I was doing my first research project in the summer of 2013. Ironically, I bought this book that summer used on sale from an online seller. I never touched it until now, when it does not serve my interests anymore. Such is life.
April 27, 2018
Expected more of an anthropological view of China/West relations but this was a summary of western literature on China. It was hard to follow and difficult to draw out any meaning. Not helpful for learning about China or China/West relations.
March 17, 2022
Jonathan Spence, the Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, is undoubtedly one of the most eminent storytellers of our era. He is concerned with not only the history of Late Imperial and Modern China, but also the relationship between East and West. Spence delivered the DeVane lectures at Yale University, a series of twelve speeches to popular audiences, in the spring of 1996. This book is an expanded and improved version based on this lecture. In this eye-opening book Spence attempts to show his readers how westerners developed their impressions of China over the past eight hundred years. The Chan’s Great Continent: China in Western Minds unfolds in twelve chapters and investigates a huge works of forty-eight “sightings” of China, including famous travelers, writers, playwrights, missionaries, diplomats, journalists, and philosophers. Some of them had been to China and took down some first-hand material. However, others encountered China only in their imaginations.
In this book, Spence has argued that firstly Western travelers, such as Marco Polo, regarded China as an advanced civilization. Later, after the Enlightenment, Western observers and writers about China tended to view China as corrupt, archaic and menacing. In the late nineteenth century, some Chinese migrants who came to the West in Western popular culture were depicted as a “jabbering idiot,” or “mental vacuum.” But other Chinese image was cunning, cruel, and evil, such as the character of Fu-Manchu. The polemical images may be seen as the ambivalence of Westerner’s attitude to Chinese migrants.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, Edgar Snow’s positive coverage of the Chinese Communist Party in Yan’an may reflectthat the Marxism was the hope of China. The Marxian analysis of Karl Wittfogel’s The Oriental Despotism, A Comparative Study of Total Power attempted to provide a great model to explain the historical development of China, like his predecessors Leibniz, Montesquieu, and Voltaire.
In this book Spence chose forty-eight representative figures culled from a number over one hundred similar ones. However, I am really interested in those omitted figures. They could be also quite important in this analysis. For example, when Spence mentioned the character of Fu-Manchu as a representative of nocuous and negative Chinese image, it could be a dread omission that he did not mention the other coexistent character in Western popular literature, Charlie Chan. He is a character created by Earl Derr Biggers in 1925. Charlie Chan is wise and courageous detective and could be a representative of a positive Chinese image different to Fu-Manchu.[1] Of course, Spence may omit this case because this is a compact book. However, if Spence put Charlie Chan in his analysis, the result could be quite different.
Furthermore, Spence has demonstrated how Westerner’s attitudes towards China in this book. However, it is unfortunate that it lacks the description that how Western perceptions of China changes Westerner’s viewpoints about the world around them. What is the changes of the West after encountering China?
In the end of this book, Spence cited a passage of Calvino’s Invisible Cities. In this passage, Kublai Khan asks Marco Polo: “When you return to the West, will he repeat to your people the same tales you tell me?” Marco Polo tells the Khan:
I speak and speak, but the listener retains only the words he is expecting…It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.
This means that whatever Chinese speak the Westerners always hear what they want and what they are expecting. Because of this story, Spence argues that China does not need to fasten itself into Western minds. However, a further and practical question raise in my mind is how China need not attach itself to Western minds. After the Deng’s reform, China has more and more inclined towards a capitalist society and integrated itself into a globalization process. Western political and economic superiority cannot be ignored by China. Chinese indeed feel anxious in the age of globalization because they have to relocate their place and identity in the global society.[2] This question may be a little digressing and beyond the theme of Spence’s book. However, I think that this could be a question deserving serious discussions.
Taken together, despite such incompleteness, we cannot deny the great value and achievement of The Chan’s Great Continent. In this compact book Spence has shown his readers a broad historical horizon and his erudition. This book will not be an end of a lecture, but a beginning of further exploration of the interaction between East and West.
[1] Zhiqin Jiang 姜智芹, Fumanzhou yu chenchali 傅滿洲與陳查理 [Fu-Manchu and Charlie Chan]. Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 2007.
[2] Xudong Zhang 張旭東, Quanqiuhua shidai de wenhua rentong 全球化時代的文化認同 [Cultural Identity in the Age of Globalization]. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2005.
Summer 2008
In this book, Spence has argued that firstly Western travelers, such as Marco Polo, regarded China as an advanced civilization. Later, after the Enlightenment, Western observers and writers about China tended to view China as corrupt, archaic and menacing. In the late nineteenth century, some Chinese migrants who came to the West in Western popular culture were depicted as a “jabbering idiot,” or “mental vacuum.” But other Chinese image was cunning, cruel, and evil, such as the character of Fu-Manchu. The polemical images may be seen as the ambivalence of Westerner’s attitude to Chinese migrants.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, Edgar Snow’s positive coverage of the Chinese Communist Party in Yan’an may reflectthat the Marxism was the hope of China. The Marxian analysis of Karl Wittfogel’s The Oriental Despotism, A Comparative Study of Total Power attempted to provide a great model to explain the historical development of China, like his predecessors Leibniz, Montesquieu, and Voltaire.
In this book Spence chose forty-eight representative figures culled from a number over one hundred similar ones. However, I am really interested in those omitted figures. They could be also quite important in this analysis. For example, when Spence mentioned the character of Fu-Manchu as a representative of nocuous and negative Chinese image, it could be a dread omission that he did not mention the other coexistent character in Western popular literature, Charlie Chan. He is a character created by Earl Derr Biggers in 1925. Charlie Chan is wise and courageous detective and could be a representative of a positive Chinese image different to Fu-Manchu.[1] Of course, Spence may omit this case because this is a compact book. However, if Spence put Charlie Chan in his analysis, the result could be quite different.
Furthermore, Spence has demonstrated how Westerner’s attitudes towards China in this book. However, it is unfortunate that it lacks the description that how Western perceptions of China changes Westerner’s viewpoints about the world around them. What is the changes of the West after encountering China?
In the end of this book, Spence cited a passage of Calvino’s Invisible Cities. In this passage, Kublai Khan asks Marco Polo: “When you return to the West, will he repeat to your people the same tales you tell me?” Marco Polo tells the Khan:
I speak and speak, but the listener retains only the words he is expecting…It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.
This means that whatever Chinese speak the Westerners always hear what they want and what they are expecting. Because of this story, Spence argues that China does not need to fasten itself into Western minds. However, a further and practical question raise in my mind is how China need not attach itself to Western minds. After the Deng’s reform, China has more and more inclined towards a capitalist society and integrated itself into a globalization process. Western political and economic superiority cannot be ignored by China. Chinese indeed feel anxious in the age of globalization because they have to relocate their place and identity in the global society.[2] This question may be a little digressing and beyond the theme of Spence’s book. However, I think that this could be a question deserving serious discussions.
Taken together, despite such incompleteness, we cannot deny the great value and achievement of The Chan’s Great Continent. In this compact book Spence has shown his readers a broad historical horizon and his erudition. This book will not be an end of a lecture, but a beginning of further exploration of the interaction between East and West.
[1] Zhiqin Jiang 姜智芹, Fumanzhou yu chenchali 傅滿洲與陳查理 [Fu-Manchu and Charlie Chan]. Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 2007.
[2] Xudong Zhang 張旭東, Quanqiuhua shidai de wenhua rentong 全球化時代的文化認同 [Cultural Identity in the Age of Globalization]. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2005.
Summer 2008
August 2, 2007
This book was fascinating, Spence's erudition flowing from every page. Jonathan Spence, perhaps the Anglo world's foremost historian of China, chronicles perceptions of China in the West from Marco Polo's sometimes-precise, sometimes-fantastical travelogues of the late 13th century to the imaginative, infinitely expansive short stories of Borges and Calvino in the late 20th century. All the while, such figures as Franz Kafka, John Steinbeck, Jane Austen, Oliver Goldsmith, Lord Macartney, Karl Marx, Richard Nixon, Mark Twain, Bertolt Brecht, Catholic and Protestant missionaries, French poets (whom I can't remember), and many others have their own views to share.
As an amateur scholar of China myself, I felt as if Spence had taken me across a journey not of the last eight centuries, but of the last five years, when I first began my study of the vast country. The perceptions of China begin with fable, journey to exoticism, to realism, back to exoticism, to pity, to awe, to a longing for China's lost past, to literary appropriation, and ending with Calvino's realization (in a story based upon Marco Polo's position in the court of Kublai Khan) that we see in China what we want to see.
A hearty recommendation to anyone who wants a tour through China via Western intellectual history.
As an amateur scholar of China myself, I felt as if Spence had taken me across a journey not of the last eight centuries, but of the last five years, when I first began my study of the vast country. The perceptions of China begin with fable, journey to exoticism, to realism, back to exoticism, to pity, to awe, to a longing for China's lost past, to literary appropriation, and ending with Calvino's realization (in a story based upon Marco Polo's position in the court of Kublai Khan) that we see in China what we want to see.
A hearty recommendation to anyone who wants a tour through China via Western intellectual history.
June 20, 2009
Interesting to read about how Western perception of China changed, from the times of Marco Polo / Kublai Khan (late 1200s) to Nixon / Mao. There was admiration for its stable societies and generous people, disdain at its stagnant development and ingenious imitation, wonder at the exotic and sensual, disapproval of its servility to the emperor, fear when immigrants poured in from the 1800s, nostalgia for the innocence after the materialist republic was established, but time and again, intrigue.
Spence is a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, and author of award-winning books on Chinese history. This book takes us 700 years through biographies and literature. It's fascinating, but there were bits when it feels a little forced (e.g. Kafka's short story on China, which surely is hardly representative). There were also events and personages in history that were surprisingly left out, e.g. Opium War, emperors Kangxi & Qianlong; surely they would have made an impression on literature?
The evidence was mostly literary. Interesting in itself, but feels a little too one-sided sometimes in using that to account for the western view of china.
Spence is a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, and author of award-winning books on Chinese history. This book takes us 700 years through biographies and literature. It's fascinating, but there were bits when it feels a little forced (e.g. Kafka's short story on China, which surely is hardly representative). There were also events and personages in history that were surprisingly left out, e.g. Opium War, emperors Kangxi & Qianlong; surely they would have made an impression on literature?
The evidence was mostly literary. Interesting in itself, but feels a little too one-sided sometimes in using that to account for the western view of china.
January 3, 2008
I'm only on the 1st chapter but so far it's boooooooriiiing. Early descriptions of the Chinese by Europeans in the 13th c. are hilarious though: "The [Chinese] are a small race, who when speaking breathe heavily through the nose; and it is a general rule that all orientals have a small opening for the eyes." Meanwhile the Chinese were probably making fun of the Europeans' tall oafish stature, stinky b.o., big noses, and calling them uncouth barbarians unversed in the subtle ways of Chinese calligraphy and ink and brush painting(I'm guessing).
January 16, 2010
An excellent book with a rich bibliography for continued reading. It is initially (but not after further reflection) surprising how long China has figured in Western imaginations. Professor Spence describes well the different approaches made to China without imposing contemporary standards on their conclusion: an admirable objectivity.
March 27, 2009
Another Jonathan Spence book. This one attempts to show the way that China has been percieved by "the west" from earliest historical references to present. If I remember correctly it begins with Marco Polo. It does a fairly good job, it's not particularly exciting but it was worth digesting.
November 14, 2011
Good, not great. Material that is probably interesting for people familiar with China, but simplified to be interesting for everyone. Never feels like the thesis is being developed beyond "we see what we want to see in China".
May 14, 2008
Very good and well-written story of westerners going to China and interpreting it in their own ways. Learned a lot of new things.
June 22, 2008
Maybe my expectation was really high. I enjoyed it but it took a more careful reading than I expected.
December 4, 2008
Read this as I traveled through China.
January 23, 2010
The West's perceptions of China, from Marco Polo to modern times.
September 2, 2011
The Chan's Great Continent was fairly written. Some parts were similiar to Julia Lovell's book about the 'Great Wall', but this was told from the Western perspective.
Read
July 22, 2015一直對中西交流史很有興趣
不過明朝以後的相關書籍讀的不多
這本剛好當個起點
但是從馬可波羅一直講到中共
跨距長了點
這樣的篇幅感覺不是很好發揮
提出了許多具啟發性的想法倒是真的
不過明朝以後的相關書籍讀的不多
這本剛好當個起點
但是從馬可波羅一直講到中共
跨距長了點
這樣的篇幅感覺不是很好發揮
提出了許多具啟發性的想法倒是真的
Read
July 19, 2018DNF'd @ p.100
May be a fine book for what it is, but what it is is just not what I was looking for. I was hoping for the 'wider' image of China and its impact on European society, how much of a role the view of China played in the Enlightenment for instance, not just 'what Voltaire wrote about China'.
So while not incorrect, the subtitle could have been more precise:
May be a fine book for what it is, but what it is is just not what I was looking for. I was hoping for the 'wider' image of China and its impact on European society, how much of a role the view of China played in the Enlightenment for instance, not just 'what Voltaire wrote about China'.
So while not incorrect, the subtitle could have been more precise:
China in very specific, individual western minds, without too much context
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