Book Review: Far East: Asia on the Eve of Europe's Expansion
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206602100336 |
| Author | M. Blackmore |
| Published date | 01 September 1966 |
| Date | 01 September 1966 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
400
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
ASIA
ON
THE EVE
OF
EUROPE'S
EXPANSION.
Edited
by
Donald
F
Lach
and
Carol
Flaumenhaft.
1965.
(Englewood
Cliffs:
Toronto:
Prentice-Hall,
viii,
213pp.
Clothbound
$6.00.
Paperback
$2.25)
As
a
by-product
of
his
labours
on his
massive
Asia
rn
the
Making
of
Europe,
Mr. Donald
Lach
has
collaborated
with
Miss
Carol
Flaumen-
haft
on
the
present
comparatively
modest
volume aimed,
presumably
at
being
a
compamon to
text-book
treatments
of
early
modern
Asian
history
This
purpose
it
should
usefully
serve-I
shall certainly
recom-
mend
it
to my
own
students
next
October-since
it
contains
a
skilfully
chosen
selection
of
materials,
most
capably
presented,
to
illustrate
various
facets
of
Asian
life
and
East-West contacts
in
the
fifteenth
and
sixteenth centuries.
The
editors'
method
is to give
a general
introduction
on
the
history
of
India,
Southeast
Asia,
China,
and
Japan,
from
early
times
up
to
and
including
the sixteenth
century*
then
there
are
four
sections
of selected
documents
dating
from
the
fifteenth
and
sixteenth
centuries
devoted
to
the
four
areas
mentioned
above
respectively-
at
the
beginning
of
these
four
sections
are
a number
of
extracts
from Pires'
Suma
Oriental
to give
the reader
an
idea
of
the
whole
picture
of
East
Asian
maritime
trade
around
1515;
and
at
the
end
of
the
book
are
two
items
designed
to
show
the
impact
of Asia
on
the
European
mind by
1600.
In
the intro-
ductions
to
the
different
sections
and
to
the
various
documents
and
extracts,
further
general
information
is
given,
there
are
notes
on
the
authors,
and also
bibliographical
material
explaining,
for
example,
the
differences
between
the
Indian and
Chinese
attitudes
to
keeping
his-
torical
records.
As
to
the
selected documents
themselves,
they
can
roughly
be
divided
into
three
kinds-European
accounts, Asian
historical
chronicles,
and
extracts
from
Asian
literature
in
the
fields
of
religion,
drama,
and
fiction.
To
mention
one
or
two of
each
category
at
random.
Among
the
Western
writings
Tome
Pires'
Suma
Oriental
(completed
1517)
and
the
Jesuit
account
of
China
(1590)
translated
into
English as
An
Ex
cellent
Treatise
of
the
Kingdome
of
China
both
throw
useful light
on
their
periods.
In
his
account
of
China,
Pires
evinces
the attitude
of
the
Western
empire-builder
out
East
urging
on
the
people
at
home
to
fresh
advances:
"China
is
an
important,
good,
and very
wealthy
country
and
the
Governor
of
Malacca would
not
need
as
much
force
as
they
say
in
order
to bring
it
under our
rule,
because
the
people
are
very
weak and
easy to
overcome.
The
Jesuit
writers
found
the
efficency
of
the
Chinese
administration
a
thing
of
wonder
government
in
fact
being
the
Chinese
"chiefe
arte,
and
unto
that
all
their
learnng
and
exercise
of
letters
is
directed.
This account
sets
the
tone
for
later
eulogies of
China
by
the
Jesuits
in
the
seventeenth
and
eighteenth
centuries.
Among
the
Asian
historical
documents,
the
selections
from
the
Se3arah
Malayu,
with
its
account of
the
fall
of
Malacca
to
the
Portu-
guese
from
the
Malay
side,
should
be
mentioned,
and with
regard
to
lighter
reading
my
own
favourite
is
the
extract
from
The
Golden
Lotus;
this
story
of
corruption
and
the
circumventing
of
justice
in
late
Ming
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