Daniel Carey, ed. Asian Travel in the RenaissanceAsian Travel in the Renaissance by Daniel CareyReview by: James D. RyanRenaissance Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Spring 2006), pp. 248-249Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1353/ren.2008.0214 .

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Daniel Carey, ed. Asian Travel in the Renaissance.Renaissance Studies 17. Oxford and Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. xii + 234 pp.index. illus. map. $39.95. ISBN: 1–4051–1160–7.

This book is the first in a series of essay collections to be published occasion-ally for the Society for Renaissance Studies. Each will be a special number of theSociety’s journal, Renaissance Studies (this one is volume 17, number 3), in whichguest editors will present peer-reviewed essays. Editor Daniel Carey has assembledeight studies providing a broad and interesting cross-section of current scholarship,most of them relating to each other only in that they deal with European contactwith, or interest, in Asia, and taking widely differing approaches to this generaltheme.

The first two, “Alessandro Valignano: Man, Missionary, and Writer” (M. AntoniÜçerler, S.J.) and “The Transmission of Renaissance Culture in Seventeenth-century China” (by Nicolas Standart), focus respectively on Jesuit missionary workin Japan and China. The first traces the career of Valignano from his appointmentas Visitor to the Jesuit missions in the Portuguese East Indies in 1573 until hisdeath in 1606: his life becomes a vehicle for a rich exploration of problemsmissionaries encountered trying to create a church in Asia. The second recountsthe almost century-long Jesuit attempt to make European learning available inChinese translations, and shows how Chinese scholars’ initial receptiveness to someclassical writers and to European astronomical and mathematical advances latergave way to a sense of superiority founded on their erroneous belief that Westernlearning had originated in China. As the window of openness to Europeancivilization established by Matteo Ricci and his confreres slowly closed, theattempt to facilitate conversions of Chinese elites by finding common ground

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between Western and Eastern cultural traditions failed. The third offering, “TheWidening of the World and the Realm of History: Early European Approaches tothe Beginning of Siamese History, ca. 1500–1700” (Sven Trakulhun), traces thepaths by which Europeans received knowledge of Siam’s early history, throughPortuguese, Dutch, and French sources. Joan-Pau Rubiés’ fact-filled article on“The Spanish contribution to the ethnology of Asia in the sixteenth and seven-teenth centuries” is followed by John Villiers’s excellent portrait of the life andwork of the Aragonese humanist and historian Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola(“‘A truthful pen and an impartial spirit’: Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola andthe Conquista de las Islas Malucas”). Both Villiers’s piece and the one that follows(“‘Wherever profit leads us, to every sea and shore’: The VOC, the WIC,and Dutch Methods of Globalization in the Seventeenth Century,” by ClaudiaSchnurmann) provide more context than many in the volume, and should helpreaders pull the information into a more coherent whole. Schnurmann’s essaycompares the Dutch East India and West Indies companies, laying out the evo-lution and development of Dutch ventures in the Atlantic and Pacific. Herdiscussion of the East India Company provides a clear summary of Dutch inroadsinto Asia, while that on the West Indies Company lifts that important venture outof the shadow of neglect. Robert Markley’s “Riches, Power, Trade and Religion:The Far East and the English Imagination, 1600–1720” uses the tools of literarycriticism to good effect in discussing Heylyn’s Cosmographie and other writings,documenting the changing attitude of the English toward the Far East. DanielCarey contributes both the introduction to the volume and its final essay, “ThePolitical Economy of Poison: the Kingdom of Makassar and the Early RoyalSociety,” an interesting and informative recounting of the Royal Society’s searchfor information about the deadly poison darts Makassar’s defenders used againstEuropeans, and for an antidote that might have given English traders a leg up onthe Dutch in the contest for global trade. The volume closes with Malyn Newitt’sobituary for Professor C. R. Boxer (1904–2000), recounting his life, scholarship,and academic achievements. Newitt, Charles Boxer Professor of History in theDepartment of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at King’s College London, offersa fitting tribute to a unique scholar who maintained a life-long interest in thisvolume’s subject. Lastly, there is one map that, although somewhat difficult to readand incomplete, helps clarify much of the material.

In sum, the book presents eight varied essays, each an interesting example ofquality scholarly writing. It ought to appeal to specialists in the region or theperiod, and may be useful reading for upper-level students, but, because most ofthe articles presume considerable background knowledge, it is hard to see how itwould attract or satisfy a more casual audience.

JAMES D. RYAN

Bronx Community College, The City University of New York, Emeritus

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