A Singular Case

As has been long recognised, Europe’s growing knowledge of China’s ancient and sophisticated civilisation had a major influence on the moral culture of the European Enlightenment. In China, European thinkers perceived an orderly, stable society, with a viable ethical system that had developed independently of Judaic-Christianity. This in turn raised fundamental questions, not only about the nature of God and morality, but also about what lessons could be learned from China about the human condition and the universal laws governing human society. In this book, Ashley Eva Millar makes a major contribution to the rich literature on China and the European Enlightenment. Her emphasis is on European debates regarding China’s political economy, and she explores the changing European perceptions of China’s government, social ethics and economic activity. Her period extends from the end of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century (or more precisely from 1696 to 1776), a period when levels of agricultural and manufacturing productivity in China and Europe were relatively equal. But this was also the period when many Europeans came to believe that China’s great empire was stagnating, while their civilisation represented progress and improvement

Aesthetics · China · Christianity · Civilization · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Empire · Enlightenment · Morality · Period (music · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Theology · Western culture · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy