04670nam 2200781Ia 450 991081763540332120240418023349.01-283-88943-90-8122-0005-510.9783/9780812200058(CKB)3170000000046982(OCoLC)794700616(CaPaEBR)ebrary10576119(SSID)ssj0000605781(PQKBManifestationID)11371986(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000605781(PQKBWorkID)10574902(PQKB)11138242(MdBmJHUP)muse8339(DE-B1597)448967(OCoLC)1013936377(OCoLC)979881020(DE-B1597)9780812200058(Au-PeEL)EBL3441678(CaPaEBR)ebr10576119(CaONFJC)MIL420193(MiAaPQ)EBC3441678(EXLCZ)99317000000004698220100203d2010 uy 0engurcn|||||||||txtccrThe birth of orientalism[electronic resource] /Urs App1st ed.Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Pressc20101 online resource (569 p.)Encounters with AsiaBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph0-8122-2346-2 0-8122-4261-0 Includes bibliographical references and index.Front matter --Contents --List of Figures and Tables --Preface --Introduction --Chapter 1. Voltaire's Veda --Chapter 2. Ziegenbalg's and La Croze's Discoveries --Chapter 3. Diderot's Buddhist Brahmins --Chapter 4. De Guignes's Chinese Vedas --Chapter 5. Ramsay's Ur-Tradition --Chapter 6. Holwell's Religion of Paradise --Chapter 7. Anquetil-Duperron's Search for the True Vedas --Chapter 8. Volney's Revolutions --Synoptic List of Protagonists --Notes --Bibliography --IndexModern Orientalism is not a brainchild of nineteenth-century European imperialists and colonialists, but, as Urs App demonstrates, was born in the eighteenth century after a very long gestation period defined less by economic or political motives than by religious ideology. Based on sources from a dozen languages, many unavailable in English, The Birth of Orientalism presents a completely new picture of this protracted genesis, its underlying dynamics, and the Western discovery of Asian religions from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. App documents the immense influence of Japan and China and describes how the Near Eastern cradle of civilization moved toward mother India. Moreover, he shows that some of India's purportedly oldest texts were products of eighteenth-century European authors. Though Western engagement with non-Abrahamic Asian religions reaches back to antiquity and can without exaggeration be called the largest-scale religiocultural encounter in history, it has so far received surprisingly little attention-which is why some of its major features and their role in the birth of modern Orientalism are described here for the first time. The study of Asian documents had a profound impact on Europe's intellectual makeup. Suddenly the Bible had much older competitors from China and India, Sanskrit threatened to replace Hebrew as the world's oldest language, and Judeo-Christianity appeared as a local phenomenon on a dramatically expanded, worldwide canvas of religions and mythologies. Orientalists were called upon as arbiters in a clash that involved neither gold and spices nor colonialism and imperialism but, rather, such fundamental questions as where we come from and who we are: questions of identity that demanded new answers as biblical authority dramatically waned.Encounters with Asia.OrientalismEuropeHistory18th centuryReligionsStudy and teachingHistory18th centuryAsiaReligionStudy and teachingHistory18th centuryEuropeIntellectual life18th centuryAfrican Studies.Anthropology.Asian Studies.Folklore.Linguistics.Middle Eastern Studies.Philology and Linguistics.OrientalismHistoryReligionsStudy and teachingHistory294App Urs1949-647281MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910817635403321The birth of orientalism3916986UNINA