Ideographia: The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe

by David Porter

From the first successful Jesuit mission to China in 1583, China's cultural practices transfixed the attention of Western philosophers, theologians, architects, artists, entrepreneurs, and social critics. This book traces recurrent patterns in the European imaginative constructions of China through four illuminating spheres of linguistic, theological, aesthetic, and economic.

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001