Telescope and Microscope. A micro-historical approach to global China in the eighteenth century

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1315-1344
Author(s):  
EUGENIO MENEGON
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Small Communities ◽  
Chinese Christians ◽  
Statistical Series ◽  
Anglophone World ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

AbstractOne of the challenges of global history is to bridge the particularities of individual lives and trajectories with the macro-historical patterns that develop over space and time. Italian micro-history, particularly popular in the 1980s–1990s, has excavated the lives of small communities or individuals to test the findings of serial history and macro-historical approaches. Micro-history in the Anglophone world has instead focused more on narrative itself, and has shown, with some exceptions, less interest for ampler historiographical conclusions.Sino-Western interactions in the early modern period offer a particularly fruitful field of investigation, ripe for a synthesis of the global and the micro-historical. Cultural, social, and economic phenomena can be traced in economic and statistical series, unpublished correspondence, and other non-institutional sources, in part thanks to the survival of detailed records of the activities of East India companies and missionary agencies in China. Recent scholarship has started to offer new conclusions, based on such Western records and matching records in the Chinese historical archive.In this article, I offer a methodological reflection on ‘global micro-history’, followed by four micro-historical ‘vignettes’ that focus on the economic and socio-religious activities of the Roman Catholic mission in Beijing in the long eighteenth century. These fragments uncover unexplored facets of Chinese life in global contexts from the point of view of European missionaries and Chinese Christians in the Qing capital—‘end users’ of the local and global networks of commerce and religion bridging Europe, Asia, Africa, and South and Central America.

scholarly journals The Dramaturgy of Female Gender  in Early Modern English Theatre:  An Investigation of the Theatrical Expression of Gender in Selected Jacobean Plays, Their Restoration/Early Eighteenth-Century Adaptations, and Their Original and Contemporary Staging

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lori Beth Leigh
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Female Gender ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
The Winter's Tale ◽  
Winter's Tale ◽  
Female Roles ◽  
Gender Boundaries

<p>The adaptations of Shakespeare‘s plays that were written and staged during the English Restoration and eighteenth century form an important part of the performance history of Shakespeare; yet they have never been employed in research on the female characters in the original plays. This thesis analyzes four late Shakespeare plays and their adaptations: The Two Noble Kinsmen (with Fletcher) and Davenant's The Rivals; The Tempest and Davenant and Dryden's The Enchanted Island; The Winter's Tale and Garrick's Florizel and Perdita; and the lost Cardenio (also with Fletcher) and Theobald's Double Falsehood. Investigating the dramaturgy of the female characters from a theatrical point-of-view that includes both a close-reading and imagining of the text with a "directorial eye" and practical staging work, this study examines not only language but the construction and representation of character through emotional and physical states of being, gestures and movement, sound (music and the sound of speech), props, costumes, spectacle, stage directions, use of space and architecture, and the audience. The adaptations have been used as a lens to encounter afresh the female characters in the original plays. Through this approach, I have discovered evidence to challenge some traditional interpretations of Shakespeare's female characters and have also offered new readings of the characters. In addition, I have demonstrated the danger of accepting the widely held critical view that the introduction of actresses on the Restoration stage prompted adaptors to sexualize the female roles in a demeaning, trivial, and meretricious manner. In fact, female roles in the Restoration had some power to subvert gender boundaries just as they did in the Renaissance when played by boy actors. This work explores the treatment of themes and motifs that recur around the staging of women in the early modern period such as madness, cross-gender disguise and cross-gender casting, rape and sexual violence, and the use of silence by female characters. Each chapter draws individual conclusions about the female characters in the plays, often drawing parallels between two central women in particular play. Overall, the thesis demonstrates the complexity and multiplicity of the ways the women in Shakespeare's plays express their agency and desire.</p>

Economic Links with Ayutthaya: Changes in Networks between Japan, China, and Siam in the Early Modern Period

Itinerario ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 92-104
Author(s):  
Ryuto Shimada
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Maritime Trade ◽  
Trade Patterns ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Japan And China

Ayutthaya was a key transit port and a centre for the intra-Asian maritime trade in the early modern period. Consequently, Siam's international trade must have been transformed once the maritime trade in Asia changed on a large scale. This essay aims to offer a systematic picture of the changing trend in the maritime trade in the China Sea region, with particular emphasis on Ayutthaya's trade with Japan and China. To this end, the transition of the Siamese trade will be examined from the point of view of regional trade patterns and how these changed from the mid-seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century.This essay has two general purposes. First, it provides a multinational perspective for a comparative study of Japan and China's foreign trade. The second is to use this case study of the Siamese trade to examine the hypothesis posed by Leonard Blussé that the eighteenth century should be regarded as a “Chinese century.”Keeping these aims in mind, I shall analyse the Siamese trade with Japan and China in the long run and after detailed investigation, propose a model for the triangular trade between Japan, China, and Siam.

scholarly journals COMMONWEALTH: THE SOCIAL, CULTURAL, AND CONCEPTUAL CONTEXTS OF AN EARLY MODERN KEYWORD

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 659-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Custom ◽  
Textual Approach ◽  
Anglophone World

ABSTRACTThe article explores ‘commonwealth’ both as a term and a conceptual field across the early modern period, with a particular focus on the Anglophone world. The shifts of usage of ‘commonwealth’ are explored, from a term used to describe the polity, to one used to describe a particular, republican form of polity, through to its eclipse in the eighteenth century by other terms such as ‘nation’ and ‘state’. But the article also investigates the variety of usages during any one time, especially at moments of crisis, and the network of related terms that constituted ‘commonwealth’. That investigation requires, it is argued, not just a textual approach but one that embraces social custom and practice, as well as the study of literary and visual forms through which the keyword ‘commonwealth’ was constructed. The article emphasizes the importance of social context to language; the forms, metaphors and images used to describe and depict the polity; and to show how linguistic change could occur through the transmutation of elements of the conceptual field that endowed the keyword with its meaning.

Monuments to the Truth of Christianity: Anti-Judaism in the Works of Adam Clarke

2017 ◽  
Vol 93 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-66
Author(s):  
Simon Mayers
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

The prevailing historiographies of Jewish life in England suggest that religious representations of the Jews in the early modern period were confined to the margins and fringes of society by the desacralization of English life. Such representations are mostly neglected in the scholarly literature for the latter half of the long eighteenth century, and English Methodist texts in particular have received little attention. This article addresses these lacunae by examining the discourse of Adam Clarke (1760/2–1832), an erudite Bible scholar, theologian, preacher and author and a prominent, respected, Methodist scholar. Significantly, the more overt demonological representations were either absent from Clarke‘s discourse, or only appeared on a few occasions, and were vague as to who or what was signified. However, Clarke portrayed biblical Jews as perfidious, cruel, murderous, an accursed seed, of an accursed breed and radically and totally evil. He also commented on contemporary Jews (and Catholics), maintaining that they were foolish, proud, uncharitable, intolerant and blasphemous. He argued that in their eternal, wretched, dispersed condition, the Jews demonstrated the veracity of biblical prophecy, and served an essential purpose as living monuments to the truth of Christianity.

Military Scotland in the Age of Proto-globalisation, c. 1690 to c. 1815

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Mackillop
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Military Service ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Class A ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

This chapter considers the way in which military service acted as an agent of mobility and a means of extending global networks. In the long eighteenth century. The so-called military economy allowed Scots, who were over-represented in the British officer corps, to use existing regional and kinship connections to extend a form of ‘gentlemanly capitalism’. Service in the armies of the East India Company provided Scots from the emerging middle class a means for social mobility. The creation of these networks allowed Scottish localities to connect directly to the remotest areas of the British empire.

Paternalism and Roman Catholicism: The English Catholic Elite in the Long Eighteenth Century

2006 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 272-281
Author(s):  
Sally Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
General Acceptance ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

There is a general acceptance amongst historians of English Catholicism in the Early Modern period that Catholic landlords were paternalistic towards their tenants, that they were generally in turns charitable and controing, their behaviour invasive yet motivated by a desire for religious and social harmony within the manor. Early modern English Catholicism was certainly seigneurial, with a requirement by the landlord, as suggested by John Bossy, to pay attention to the tenants’ well-being and ‘also to their faith and morals’.’ Michael Mullett echoes these sentiments with regard to late eighteenth-century Catholics who relied ‘on the kind hearts of those who wore the coronets’. The idea of Catholic paternalism is also endorsed by several social and economic historians, such as James M. Rosenheim, who wrote with regard to Lancashire, ‘[the] Roman Catholic gentry sustained closer connections with local communities than did aristocrats elsewhere’. This paper will examine the issue of paternalism on Catholic estates and in the local community to show that the Catholic elite, like their non-Catholic counterparts, gave money to the poor and established schools and almshouses. The focus of this philanthropy, however, was on other Catholics. The Catholic elite were also able to help their tenants, who were usually Catholic, and tie them more closely to the estate by not rack-renting their property and by not hiding behind estate stewards. There were two main reasons for the Catholic elite to focus their efforts on their poorer brethren: without the help of the Catholic elite in providing chapels and relief, Catholicism in England would have floundered; the Catholic elite were also

scholarly journals A Port City in Northeast China: Dengzhou in the Long Eighteenth Century

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
RONALD C. PO
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Port City ◽  
Port Cities ◽  
The South ◽  
Southeast China ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern China

AbstractIf we were asked to recall a coastal city of early modern China, most of us would choose Shanghai, Canton, Xiamen, or Macau. These port cities became famous for facilitating trans-regional sea trade that linked the Qing Empire to the rest of the world. Attentive observers know that all of these cities are located on the Southeast China coast, by which we mean the coastal areas south of Shanghai. Taking Shanghai as the dividing line between the northeastern and southeastern coastlines, the port cities of the south are far more likely to be familiar to us than are those of the north. I consider this phenomenon (i.e. the focus on the coast of early modern China) to be a “Southeast China centrism.” And although we might all concede that some southeastern seaports were vital to transoceanic interactions, it is shortsighted to ignore the northern port cities and the role they played in connecting China with the maritime world. In this article I investigate the importance of Northeast China's port cities by focusing particular attention on the less familiar coastal seaport of Dengzhou. By detailing and examining the political and economic importance of this port city in the early modern period, I will show that Qing China's northeastern coast was no less important than the southeast. Even if China's northern port cities might not have been as economically vibrant as those in the south, we should not overlook their functions and histories. Indeed, they also attained unique patterns of political and economic development throughout the long eighteenth century.

scholarly journals The Dramaturgy of Female Gender  in Early Modern English Theatre:  An Investigation of the Theatrical Expression of Gender in Selected Jacobean Plays, Their Restoration/Early Eighteenth-Century Adaptations, and Their Original and Contemporary Staging

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lori Beth Leigh
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Female Gender ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
The Winter's Tale ◽  
Winter's Tale ◽  
Female Roles ◽  
Gender Boundaries

<p>The adaptations of Shakespeare‘s plays that were written and staged during the English Restoration and eighteenth century form an important part of the performance history of Shakespeare; yet they have never been employed in research on the female characters in the original plays. This thesis analyzes four late Shakespeare plays and their adaptations: The Two Noble Kinsmen (with Fletcher) and Davenant's The Rivals; The Tempest and Davenant and Dryden's The Enchanted Island; The Winter's Tale and Garrick's Florizel and Perdita; and the lost Cardenio (also with Fletcher) and Theobald's Double Falsehood. Investigating the dramaturgy of the female characters from a theatrical point-of-view that includes both a close-reading and imagining of the text with a "directorial eye" and practical staging work, this study examines not only language but the construction and representation of character through emotional and physical states of being, gestures and movement, sound (music and the sound of speech), props, costumes, spectacle, stage directions, use of space and architecture, and the audience. The adaptations have been used as a lens to encounter afresh the female characters in the original plays. Through this approach, I have discovered evidence to challenge some traditional interpretations of Shakespeare's female characters and have also offered new readings of the characters. In addition, I have demonstrated the danger of accepting the widely held critical view that the introduction of actresses on the Restoration stage prompted adaptors to sexualize the female roles in a demeaning, trivial, and meretricious manner. In fact, female roles in the Restoration had some power to subvert gender boundaries just as they did in the Renaissance when played by boy actors. This work explores the treatment of themes and motifs that recur around the staging of women in the early modern period such as madness, cross-gender disguise and cross-gender casting, rape and sexual violence, and the use of silence by female characters. Each chapter draws individual conclusions about the female characters in the plays, often drawing parallels between two central women in particular play. Overall, the thesis demonstrates the complexity and multiplicity of the ways the women in Shakespeare's plays express their agency and desire.</p>

Liberty, Property and Popular Politics

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
British History ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Thomas Paine ◽  
Parliamentary History ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Scottish History ◽  
The University

Few scholars can claim to have shaped the historical study of the long eighteenth century more profoundly than Professor H. T. Dickinson, who, until his retirement in 2006, held the Sir Richard Lodge Chair of British History at the University of Edinburgh. This volume, based on contributions from Dickinson's students, friends and colleagues from around the world, offers a range of perspectives on eighteenth-century Britain and provides a tribute to a remarkable scholarly career. Dickinson's work and career provides the ideal lens through which to take a detailed snapshot of current research in a number of areas. The book includes contributions from scholars working in intellectual history, political and parliamentary history, ecclesiastical and naval history; discussions of major themes such as Jacobitism, the French Revolution, popular radicalism and conservatism; and essays on prominent individuals in English and Scottish history, including Edmund Burke, Thomas Muir, Thomas Paine and Thomas Spence. The result is a uniquely rich and detailed collection with an impressive breadth of coverage.

Reframing the Sciences of the Long Eighteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Giuliano Pancaldi
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Science Policy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Past Half

Here I survey a sample of the essays and reviews on the sciences of the long eighteenth century published in this journal since it was founded in 1969. The connecting thread is some historiographic reflections on the role that disciplines—in both the sciences we study and the fields we practice—have played in the development of the history of science over the past half century. I argue that, as far as disciplines are concerned, we now find ourselves a bit closer to a situation described in our studies of the long eighteenth century than we were fifty years ago. This should both favor our understanding of that period and, hopefully, make the historical studies that explore it more relevant to present-day developments and science policy. This essay is part of a special issue entitled “Looking Backward, Looking Forward: HSNS at 50,” edited by Erika Lorraine Milam.

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