Global Gifts: The Material Culture of Diplomacy in Early Modern Eurasia

Studies in Comparative World History

by Zoltán Biedermann (Editor), Anne Gerritsen (Editor), Giorgio Riello (Editor)

This anthology explores the role that art and material goods played in diplomatic relations and political exchanges between Asia, Africa, and Europe in the early modern world. The authors challenge the idea that there was a European primacy in the practice of gift giving through a wide panoramic review of imperial encounters between Europeans (including the Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English) and Asian empires (including Ottoman, Persian, Mughal, Sri Lankan, Chinese, and Japanese cases). They examine how those exchanges influenced the global production and circulation of art and material culture, and explore the types of gifts exchanged, the chosen materials, and the manner of their presentation. Global Gifts establishes new parameters for the study of the material and aesthetic culture of Eurasian relations before 1800, exploring the meaning of artistic objects in global diplomacy and the existence of economic and aesthetic values mutually intelligible across cultural boundaries.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, World History

ebook

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Zoltán Biedermann is Senior Lecturer in Portuguese Studies at University College London. He works on the Portuguese Empire in Asia with a focus on diplomacy, imperial literature, cartography and the politics of space. He is the author of "The Portuguese in South India and Sri Lanka" (in print), "The Historical Atlas of the Persian Gulf" (2006) and "Soqotra: Geschichte einer christlichen Insel im Indischen Ozean (2006)." He is currently completing "Connected Empires: Sri Lanka, Portugal and the Making of Habsburg Imperialism in Asia, 1500–1600" and co-editing "Global Gifts: Art and Diplomacy between Europe and Asia, 1500-1800" (with Giorgio Riello and Anne Gerritsen) and "Cosmopolitan Island: Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History" (with Alan L. Strathern). He received the Ronald Tress Prize for Excellence in Research in 2012, and has held numerous grants and awards, including an Ahmanson-Getty fellowship at UCLA. He has taught at the Universidade Nova, at Brown University, and at Birkbeck College London.

Reviews

[a duck · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume, edited by Zoltán Biedermann (historian, University College London), brings together a variety of scholars whose works center on the early modern period, ranging widely in geographical focus. The chapters explore territories like Venice, the Ottoman Empire, Goa, China, Siam, France, and the Habsburg Empire. This provides a salient addition to the field of global Renaissance studies, with a varied range of methodologies and bibliographies to provide further aid to interested scholars.