De kaart van mijnheer Selden: China, de specerijenhandel en een verloren zeekaart

by Timothy Brook, Pieter van der Veen (Translator), Chiel van Soelen (Translator)

In 2009 werd in de beroemde Bodleian Library te Oxford een kaart gevonden die anders was dan alle kaarten die men kende. De kaart was er in 1659 terechtgekomen uit de erfenis van John Selden, advocaat, politicus en Engelands eerste oriëntalist, en vervolgens 350 jaar vergeten. Toen historicus Timothy Brook de kaart onder ogen kreeg, besefte hij meteen dat hier een puzzel lag die erom smeekte opgelost te worden.

De kaart laat een China zien dat rond 1610 niet was afgesneden van de wereld zoals iedereen denkt, maar nauw was verweven in een wereldomspannend netwerk van maritieme handelsbetrekkingen, hetzelfde netwerk dat de opkomst van Europa zou aanblazen. Dat geeft aanleiding tot talloze vragen. Hoe kwam John Selden in de 17de eeuw aan de kaart? Waar kwam de kaart vandaan? Wie keek op deze manier naar de wereld? En vooral: wat vertelt de kaart over de wereld die erop staat afgebeeld?

Als een detective gaat Timothy Brook op zoek naar antwoorden, van de Gobiwoestijn naar de Filippijnen, van Java naar Japan, van Londen tot diep in het hart van China. Brook neemt ons mee op een ontdekkingstocht naar een wereld die al eeuwen geglobaliseerd was voordat de term in onze tijd in zwang raakte.

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction, Asia, Science, Biography, Geography

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 2013

About the author

Timothy James Brook is a Canadian historian, sinologist, and writer specializing in the study of China (sinology). He holds the Republic of China Chair, Department of History, University of British Columbia.

His research interests include the social and cultural history of the Ming Dynasty in China; law and punishment in Imperial China; collaboration during Japan's wartime occupation of China, 1937–45 and war crimes trials in Asia; global history; and historiography.

Reviews

[Andrew H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr Selden's Map of China follows the imaginative Vermeer's Hat. It feels like the repeat of a winning formula: take a series of objects and weave Chinese history around them. Unfortunately, this map book is not in the same league. Set in the period of James I the book recounts the discovery of the Selden map, a puzzling map of China, and the state of learning during the C17. Latin and Greek had given way to stranger languages -- Hebrew, Syrian, and Chinese. There are delightful moments in the book, moments that are idiosyncratic and absurd, such as the bun fight at Oxford, following a visit by the disliked James I to the Selden part of the Bodleian Library. The arrival of Michael Shen at Oxford and the first intellectual encounters with an alien, ideogrammatic language, are narrated marvellously. Mr Selden's Map of China lacks human interest, however, and becomes pedantic at times. The book sinks under its own learning, and Brook's enthusiasm for this odd map becomes a Sternian hobbyhorse that does not really ride the waves of imagination.

[Kevin Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me forever to finish this book! I admired Brook’s previous world history book, Vermeer’s Hat, and expected that this book would similarly present a web of trade relations that spanned the globe in the late 16th and into the 17th century. The book does that, but the supposedly “rediscovered” map that is the purported nucleus of the book didn’t quite hold everything together for me, and so this book often read like a hodgepodge of different approaches to try and fit the map into a larger historical narrative – but what is that narrative? Is this a history of Oxford as an institution? A history of the beginnings of British maritime trade and diplomatic relations with China? A history of cartography in both 17th century Europe and the Ming Dynasty? Brook himself never seems to be entirely confident about how the map can best be situated in a larger historical narrative and so the result, for me, is that this is a less fluid and less readable book than Brook’s previous popular world history of the same era. Brook himself concludes his research on the Selden map by writing, “the search for the Selden map has been more convoluted and complicated than I expected it to be when I started out, a circling maze rather than a straight path.” To be sure, convoluted persons and issues (with, at times, extremely tenuous relations to the map) are doggedly pursued throughout the book. Having made this criticism, there is a tremendous amount of admirable research that obviously went into this book, be it nautical, philological, astrological, or biographical in nature. Readers will meet an intriguing if somewhat disconnected cast of characters that include: John Selden (legal theorists and the prototype of a scholar of the “Orient”); his Dutch legal counterpart Huig de Groot (Grotius); poet Ben Johnson; Oxford librarian and “Oriental” scholar Thomas Hyde; early Chinese Christian convert Michael Shen; Governor of the East India Company, Thomas Smythe; ship captain and pornography aficionado, John Saris; Ming scholar official Zhang Xie, who published on the maritime history of Fujian; various figures relevant to the burgeoning field of cartography, including Ming scholars such as Luo Hongxian and Zhang Huang; even some poor Phillipino slave by the name of “Prince Giolo,” whose tattooed body was flayed from his corpse and put on display for the edification of Oxford students. All things considered, this book confirms my respect for Timothy Brook as a historian even though I didn't find the book his best narrated history.

[Rindis · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2009 a highly unusual map was found in the Bodlean Library archives. Unusual enough that it might have been considered a fake, if not for the fact that the records of the Library receiving the map in 1659 still exist. It's an early 17th century map in Chinese of China and Indonesia and out to the Philippines and Japan, and it looks like no other known Chinese map.

Brook's book is an idiosyncratic look at this map with lots of connected history included. It tours through a number of different subjects, such as the origins of modern international law, and really doesn't come together as a cohesive whole.

That said, I really enjoyed the book. The various subjects are all interesting, especially as Brook tells it. Also, it's not all that long, so nothing has a chance to outstay its welcome.

And, while a lot of the book is on the world around the map, there are little bits of tales of Brook figuring out things about it, and at the end he finally talks about what we can know about where it comes from. Most interestingly, the map started with defining the trade routes of the region, and then arranged the land masses around those.

[Dave Schoettinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Professor Brook is able to take a chance finding of a 400 year old map in an Oxford closet and write a 200-page book about it. He does an admirable job of setting the historical circumstances for the creation of the map and the personalities of the persons involved, turning an esoteric detail into a readable story. If spending time emerged in the seventeenth century appeals to you then reading this book should be worthwhile.

[Elinor · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5
L'une de mes résolutions de 2018, la plus importante peut-être, est d'enfin finir tous les livres que j'ai pu entamer ces deux dernières années. En finir un dès le 1e janvier, c'est un bel accomplissement, non ?
Et j'aurais vraiment dû finir ce livre tout de suite, ne pas le laisser traîner aussi longtemps, parce que c'est un essai assez complexe. Vraiment très intéressant, mais complexe car abordant, en partant d'une carte de Chine, énormément de sujets, de lieux, de temporalités et de personnages différents. Un essai pas toujours très accessible (mais j'ai quand même réussi à le lire, alors que je ne connaissais absolument rien aux différents "sujets" traités, donc ce n'est pas non plus impossible, hein, il faut juste s'accrocher un peu parfois pour ne pas se perdre) mais bien écrit et très intéressant. Je pense qu'il aurait eu 4 étoiles si je l'avais lu sans cette énorme pause.

[Louis Edward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great stories personably written, but it did get quite random and confusing as it went along.

[Tim Chamberlain · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully personable book. It's easy conversational style brings to life the academic adventure of doing historical research. By using museum and library collections, tracing connections through texts and maps, linking them to real people and places in such a way as to create a dual picture of the world and time being researched, and of the world and time in which that research is being conducted.

The Selden Map of China (東西洋航海圖 Dongxi yang hanghai tu: "Navigation Chart of the Eastern and Western Oceans") is a seventeenth century navigation chart, deposited in the Bodelian library in Oxford by John Selden, a legal scholar, in 1659. There is still some debate as to when and where, as well as, how and why the map was drawn - but Timothy Brook outlines in this short book his theory that the map was first obtained by Captain John Saris, commander of the trading ship, The Clove, around 1608-1609. The map gives a curiously accurate rendering of the South China Sea, detailing the trade routes along the coastal regions of China and Southeast Asia - and bears interesting comparison to the contemporary map-making skills of European navigators, from portolan charts to Mercator's famous projection, showing how the distortions of mapping linear directions over vast, curved surfaces can be sensibly shown on a flat map and still be accurately usable for the purposes of getting from A to B over such large distances.

I particularly liked the fact that Brook related Selden's map to one of his own which he had to surrender to a Chinese Customs Official on the Vietnam border in the 1970s, and how he deftly refers back to this incident at apposite moments throughout the text but without over-stressing the point that maps are important and controversial artefacts in the history of knowledge, both in the past as in the present. It's a point very deftly conveyed.

I also appreciated the fact that he credits other scholars and researchers as he goes in his text (rather than lumping them together, ghettoised, in an acknowledgements section divorced from context and from the rest of the book); too often such books represent themselves as monolithic achievements of a single individual, but here it's wonderful to see how Brook's thinking was influenced by others even though the book clearly presents his own personal thesis (it's doubly nice too, because a couple of the people he credits are my friends and colleagues!).

He is also good at highlighting and acknowledging the limitations of both his research materials and his interpretation of them. In all, this is a wonderful read - showing how the study of material culture can bring the past closer to the present, shedding light on the development of the history of knowledge and the history of science, as well as examining the contrasts and parallels of perspectives - both East and West - which almost intersected at a crucial moment in the burgeoning first era of a globalising world.

I highly recommend it to anyone interested in cartography, exploration, the history of science, particularly in relation to China and Southeast Asia, and to early modern European interventions in this region; and to those interested in using visual sources and material culture to explore broader cultural and global history perspectives; as well as to anyone interested in how to go about writing intelligent, academic history for a popular audience - stylistically this little book is a real tour de force.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't a book that follows a single story line, but one that uses the framework of the discovery of a map (possibly drawn by a Chinese cartographer around 1608 that falls into the hands of an English academic before he wills it to the Bodleian Library) to tell many stories. The stories include the tales of its previous owners, its possible origins, its secrets, the taking of a ship off the coast of Singapore in 1603 that changed history, and the impact the map might have had on the west's understanding of Asia and cartography had it been made available to the public during Selden's lifetime, which it was not.

In short, there are fascinating sections on a number of related topics making the actual map a vehicle for the author to discuss Chinese history, the story of the Spice Trade, early cartography, dry versus wet compasses, tatooed slaves, the history of cartography and maritime law in a friendly but thorough manner. Brook is both an academic and a great story-teller, as those who have also read his most popular book, Vermeer's Hat, can attest to. (And the fact that he is a student of Chinese who lived in China makes him especially qualified to tell the stories.)

Because the map serves as the framework from which the various chapters are launched, it might be difficult for those who aren't as familiar with the history and geography of the region to keep apace as the book is information-rich. As a lover of maps and Asian history, this book was right up my alley, but I could see others might find the lack of a chronological storyline or overview of Chinese history confusing. For others, it makes the text extremely rich as each page adds additional colours to the collage.

Author Brook's credentials are impressive: he studied in China, learned Chinese, and was Joseph Needham's research assistant, but I do want to make two very small corrections to remove any misunderstandings, on p. 159 when he writes that the sun and moon as symbols "show up on shoulder patches on the robes of the Ming emperors in the fifteenth century, for example". Yes, indeed, but these ancient symbols can be found on the robes of Chinese emperors from the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) if not before--not that we have any extant examples today, but we have descriptions from texts and textile fragments. And on the same page when he writes that the Manchu tore the patches from the shoulders of imperial robes...these royal insignia (two of twelve that have existed for 2000+ years) were usually woven into the fabric of these robes, so weren't sewn on and thus were incapable of being ripped of (unlike insignia rank badges which were, for example, usually embroidered as separate pieces that were removable).

That said, this is a book well researched and written, and one might want to share with someone who hasn't already learned that history can be both educational and entertaining because that it definitely is.

[Wise_owl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very particular book for a particular type of person, and that types of person is me.

It is a story of a particular historical artifact; a Map of China in the possession of the Oxford Library. But it is more than that; it is the story of that Library; of the people who built it and why and how. Of the circumstances that might lead for such a thing to exist and come to rest there, and what we can know about the map, but also what we can never know.

History of Libraries? History of Maps? history of China and Britain and the interaction therein? All my garden, as the saying goes.

It may seem strange to us, in the modern day, to ponder a university without a library, but the old Museum's of Europe often operated of of private collections or on limited stock. There were, for much of their history, simply fewer books, and acquiring one was more difficult. As printing became easier and more ubiquitous, and as the prinicipals of the Academy became more formal and broader, there came to be seen a need for a Library. The Oxford Library, or this particular one at least, was formed from Private collections like others were. And it's foundation and remarkable curation are stories in of themselves.

The book goes over this history to give you the context for the discovery of this map, what we know about it, and so forth. It is a strange artifact, not quite comparable to Chinese maps of the era prior, nor to European maps, but suggesting a particular set of creations. Well I'd let the book kfill in the tale.

If you are into material history and the history of knowledge, this book will be highly enjoyable.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You know the times... The arts and sciences are so silent and neglected, it may be feared that the idiots will wipe them out." Johannes Schöner, 1533

This fascinating book traces the history of a Chinese map of China (that combination is important) in the Bodleian Library, London. The details of the map, in themselves, are interesting in that they illustrate a map making technique unused in the west... that starts from the sea, rather than from the land. As Brook points out, however, the book is as much about the people involved in the creation, transportation, preservation and analysis of the map, as it is about geography.
As a cutesy reference to a classic of English lit... "It was a truth universally acknowledged in the seventeenth century that a good library required a catalogue..." Winky emogi.
Another lit bit was his citation from Samuel Purchas's "Purchas His Pilgrimage"... "In Xanadu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall... and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure..." Which led to Coleridge's version that resulted from falling asleep over Purchas: "In Xanadul did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree: / Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man, / Down to a sunless sea."
Brook, who was an assistant to Josep Needham, the American who learned Chinese so he could document Chinese scientific history, carefully explores social, political, and commercial history as much as geography, science and technology.
Wonderful read.

[John_g · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is partly a biography of the little known John Selden and associates. More importantly it offers a cultural history of 17C focused on the East India Company's voyages to China. It would improve by adding science to explain navigation at that time. The author decides to style this as a mystery adventure, while he speculates and deduces a map's secrets with help of conservators and scholars, highlighting contradictory histories.

My main problem is with the maps presented in "Plate Section"
which don't show enough detail to be helpful at least not using kindle or libby app.
I could not discern the complete chart of sea routes, nor other features.

He raises interesting issues, "terra nullius argument about a legal right to occupy foreign territory that is found to be vacant" used immorally in colonization.

Interesting that English heredity of that age permitted moving up in class "glaringly unlike its contemporary, Ming China."

Interesting to be reminded that Xanadau was real, where Marcus Polo visited Kublai in Xanadu in late 13C. He ornately promotes Coleridge's poem instead of the real explorer.

Mention of Mercator is too short; he avoids math in favor of history. Sloppy treatment of magnetic pole not being fixed (it moves slowly) and whether its location is west or left of the Pole.

Is "the nature of a sphere that every line drawn on a constant compass bearing turns out to be a spiral, ending at either the North or the South Pole." Isn't a latitude line just a curve? Doesn't a spiral wind around a center in more than a single loop, like a helix? Maybe American English is different.

Like he describes Selden's map, the book is "purely of historical interest".

[Ogi Ogas · Rating 3 out of 5]

My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.

[Monteiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

A loot weaker than Vermeer's Hat, as the Selden Map feels a lot less important or connected, Timothy Brook manages to be insightful and delightful explaining the context and XVI century period, but the books interests to me peaks at the anecdotal level, an interesting read but at times disconnected and weakly held together. Still the author is interesting enough to make it a fun curiosity reading.

[Ombretta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Titolo e presentazione molto più accattivanti di quanto in realtà non si riveli il libro. Per un testo scientifico, troppe digressioni e commenti personali, per un’opera di divulgazione gli astrusi calcoli su posizioni geografiche e rotte marittime appesantiscono come un macigno. Restano interessanti alcuni fatti e personaggi storici, Zhang Xie in primis.

[David Timberline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overly schematic in its structure and includes more conjecture than I generally like. But still a fascinating investigation into a surprising historical artifact.

[Julius Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating book.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than accessible, this book is chatty and insightful, and Mr Selden's achievements as a lawyer and Orientalist deserve greater recognition.

[Virginie Dolléans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comme “Le Chapeau de Vermeer” du même auteur, ce livre érudit est passionnant . Vive Timothy Brook !

[ALF · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though the book is about one map, it has several cool side stories that connect at the end. Fun to read!

[Mary Warnement · Rating 3 out of 5]

The seventeenth century is one of my least favorite time periods, yet I was eager to read this book about a manuscript map acquired by John Selden, (famed lawyer, scholar, and antiquarian) and bequeathed to the Bodleian in his large gift of the mid-seventeenth century. I have been reading about China lately. First a mystery set in Peking and revolving around the disappearance of important prehistoric fossils during WWII, then a history about a crime in Peking just before the start of WWII, Paul French's Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China, which I chose because I wasn't ready to leave Peking behind. I commonly succumb to this tendency to follow a tread (as in rut), but why should I consider it a temptation rather than focused study? Because I know myself; I'm following my interests down whatever paths of digression they take me and enjoying the coincidences along the way. One such was encountering an author I have mentioned before in my dilettantish look at China; Brook thanks his friend Frances Wood of the British Library for pointing out materials relevant to his study. Brook and Wood both studied in China at a time when that was rare (see her Hand-grenade Practice in Peking: My Part in the Cultural Revolution, and in fact Brook introduces his book by describing his attempt to leave China with a then-current map in his backpack. Map aficionados as well as those interested in book history, economic history, library studies, and China will enjoy Brook's ability to tell a story as well as illustrate history's relevance to current events. Some chapters stray far from the map at the center, but the information provided was necessary. Was it an accident that the chapter on the map's compass was at the center of the book? If maps are your main interest, you may want to focus on that chapter and the last one which address cartographic questions in most detail.

[Avital]

GA 1121 B76 2013

[Rebecca Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a history person, yes, this was an interesting read. But although I like maps, cartography isn't really a scintillating topic so I skimmed a bit. I picked it up because my History Camp this year is Asian studies- focusing on trade between East and West leading to globalization, so this book seemed like a nice fit into that.

It was! I have a ton of markers in the book for random facts and ideas and things that were traded back and forth between Europe and Asian (mostly China and Japan are mentioned in the 16th - 18th centuries.

The author has a light style of writing that makes me wish I could hear him in person. He explains concepts well, and his enthusiasm for the subject comes through on every page.

The most interesting parts of the book are how this forgotten map brings up more questions than answers about the influence of Easter and Western cultures on each other during that time period.

Also, how each little piece of writing on the map holds a clue for the right person to read into. A good detective history story.

[ddjiii · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is rare to come across a work of history that looks at the collision of cultures using sources from both sides. This book is a fascinating hodgepodge which tugs at (if does not quite tie together) the relationship between the swiftly modernizing and globalizing Europe of the 17th century and the long-established maritime trade routes and ports of East and Southeast Asia. The prime mover and unifying element is the unusual map of the book's title, which turns up in Oxford after having been forgotten for a few centuries. The author very skillfully uses his search into the map's origins to illuminate a quirky collection of 17th century scholars, sea captains and explorers, and he seems as comfortable quoting from English travelogues and company accounts as he is from Ming geographies and navigation records. The story he ends up with is far from complete, but it's an enjoyable glimpse of a fascinating time.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a cleverly constructed little history of early modern exploration, China, cartography, and more. Timothy Brook uses an old map as the narrative backbone of his book: the owner helped draft the law of sea, so this is discussed; the translator came to England, so his bureaucratic training is described; a unique compass rose graces the map, so contemporary navigation is outline. You get the idea.

So this book offers many surprises and delights. And at the end, brings it all back together to reveal the secrets and history of the map itself.

And I realized that Mr. Selden is indeed an important figure. He's the same Selden who gave his name to the prestigious Selden Society, the journal of which helped to explain aspects of medieval law to me.

Follow me on Twitter: @Dr_A_Taubman

[Hayward Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Similar to the paintings in "Vermeer's Hat", Selden's map is a window into early 17th century when the European powers tries to set up trade routes with East Asian ports, with the hope to eventually be able to trade with the Ming dynasty. With his signature story telling, this book on the Selden's map is an excellent narrative about developments in the 17th century. All these interesting stories tie together at the end of the book, when Brook tries to provide his educated guesses on the mystery of the Selden's map. A good little book to spend a weekend on.

[Yuki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspired by an exceptional map left by British jurist John Selden, a Canadian historian Timothy Brook explores the globalism in the South East Asia in the 17th century in the context of the European marine policies after the Age of Discovery.
It was extremely fascinating to see that an old rare map in England tells international trades and the interaction between the West and the East including Japan, the concept of the territorial waters still considered as a serious diplomatic issue especially in the area depicted on the map.

[Andrew Holmes]

This was a recommendation from The Economist and although I enjoyed it there was more cartography and less history than I would ideally have liked. It is however well written and a reasonable length (i.e. not 700 pages!). If you're interested in this era's history it's worth a read.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating story, but would have enjoyed it more if the Kindle edition had included all the maps and illustrations cited in the text. Just one page of maps, out of dozens mentioned.Why do publishers think they can do this?

[Sylvia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first chapter and last chapter were great, but in between .... well much more about maps and compasses than I ever wanted to know. So I have abandoned this book. And I am now reluctant to try Brook's book on Vermeer that received really excellent reviews.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting book about a very little know cartographer. I look forward to learning more about him and the other people of similar backgrounds of the seventeenth century.