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The Chan's Great Continent:

China in Western Minds
Front Cover
15 Reviews
W W Norton & Company Incorporated, Oct 1, 1999 - History - 279 pages
China has transfixed the West since the earliest contacts between these civilizations. With his characteristic elegance and insight, Jonathan Spence explores how the West has understood China over seven centuries. Ranging from Marco Polo's own depiction of China and the mighty Khan, Kublai, in the 1270s to the China sightings of three twentieth-century writers of acknowledged genius-Kafka, Borges, and Calvino-Spence conveys Western thought on China through a remarkable array of expression. Peopling Spence's account are Iberian adventurers, Enlightenment thinkers, spinners of the dreamy cult of Chinoiserie, and American observers such as Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Ezra Pound, and Eugene O'Neill. Taken together, these China sightings tell us as much about the self-image of the West as about China. "Wonderful. . . . Spence brilliantly demonstrates [how] generation after generation of Westerners [have] asked themselves, 'What is it . . . that held this astonishing, diverse, and immensely populous land together?' " - New York Times Book Review

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Review: The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds

User Review  - Eddy Allen - Goodreads

China has transfixed the West since the earliest contacts between these civilizations. With his characteristic elegance and insight, Jonathan Spence explores how the West has understood China over ... Read full review

Review: The Chan's Great Continent

User Review  - Mel - Goodreads

This book started really well, I thought his look at the early Western writing on China, starting with the Jesuits and moving on to the embassies was quite interesting. However once the book hit the ... Read full review

All 14 reviews »

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The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds
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No preview available - 1998

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References from web pages

JSTOR: The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds
The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds. New York: ww Norton. 1998. Pp. xviii, 279. $27.50. What is a "Chan"? Jonathan D. Spence has picked the ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0002-8762(200004)105%3A2%3C523%3ATCGCCI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W

The Chan's Great Continent
By JONATHAN D. SPENCE ww Norton & Company. Read the Review. The Worlds of Marco Polo. It is entirely appropriate to the course of our own exploration that ...
www.nytimes.com/ books/ first/ s/ spence-continent.html

Chan's Great Continent
Jonathan D. Spence. The Chan's Great Continent. China in Western Minds. "Like everything else written by Jonathan Spence, The Chan's Great Continent is an ...
www.wwnorton.com/ catalog/ fall99/ chan.htm

AHA: About Us
Jonathan D. Spence. Jonathan D. Spence, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, was born in England on August 11, 1936, the son of Dermot and ...
www.historians.org/ info/ AHA_History/ spencebio.cfm

Jonthan Spence and Kang Zhengguo
AUTHOR PAGE. HOME · VISITING WRITERS SERIES. nys writers logo. Jonathan Spence JONATHAN SPENCE Leading authority on Chinese civilization. Kang Zhengguo ...
www.albany.edu/ writers-inst/ webpages4/ archives/ jonkang.html

The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds.(Review ...
The Chans Great Continent: China in Western Minds.(Review) from History: Review of New Books in Reference provided by Find Articles
findarticles.com/ p/ articles/ mi_hb141/ is_199903/ ai_n13325300

Memoirs and Travelogues in East Asia
Memoirs and Travelogues in East Asia. History 150. MW 2:00-4:00. Robert André lafleur Office Hours:. Morse-Ingersoll 111 Monday 1:00-2:00 ...
www.beloit.edu/ ~history/ robert_lafleur/ Memoirs.doc

Viewpoints: Ann Huss
In his recent historical study The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds, Jonathan Spence argues that "one aspect of a country's greatness is ...
www.wellesley.edu/ DavisMuseum/ VillageWorks/ Exhibition/ Viewpoints/ huss.html

David Porter. Ideographia: The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe
Jonathan Spence's 1998 The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds--probably too late for Porter to consult--covers the history of China ...
www.questia.com/ PM.qst?a=o& se=gglsc& d=5002557772

Spence, Chan's Great Continent
Política Exterior, N. 71, pp. 157-159. Jonathan D. Spence, The Chan’s Great Continent. China in Western Minds. New York & London, ww Norton, 1998. 279 pp. ...
www.florentinorodao.com/ rev/ pespence.htm

About the author (1999)

Jonathan D. Spence was born in England and received his B.A. from Cambridge University. In 1966 he received his Ph.D. from Yale University and has been a professor of Chinese history there since that time. Spence has won a variety of major fellowships and has served as visiting professor at Belfast's Queens University, Princeton University, and Beijing University. He employs a distinctive writing and historical style, weaving together various kinds of materials to fashion new forms of historical narrative. The best examples of his unique style are The Death of Woman Wang (1979) and The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. In his works, Spence provides a uniquely accessible vision of late imperial China. His writings have won numerous awards and prizes. The Gate of Heavenly Peace (1982) won two awards---the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Henry D. Vursell Memorial Award of the American Academy-Institute of Arts and Letters.

Bibliographic information

QR code for The Chan's Great Continent
TitleThe Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds
AuthorJonathan D. Spence
Editionreprint
PublisherW W Norton & Company Incorporated, 1999
ISBN039331989X, 9780393319897
Length279 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / Asia / China
  
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