At the end of the 15th century, Portugal was given the oversight (Padroado) of all Catholic missions in Asia. The Society of Jesus played a major role in this enterprise of evangelization, which in Jesuit hands led to the transmission of major elements of European mathematical sciences to East Asia. The essays in this volume present important new data and analysis on the extent to and ways in which Jesuit scientific culture and Portuguese policies regarding education, trade and mission shaped the reception of OC Western learningOCO in China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam in the early modern period. Sample Chapter(s). Foreword (89 KB). The Jesuit Mathematicians of the Portuguese Assistancy and the Portuguese Historians of Mathematics (1819-1940) (279 KB). Contents: The Jesuit Mathematicians of the Portuguese Assistancy and the Portuguese Historians of Mathematics (1819OCo1940) (L M R Saraiva); The Jesuit College in Macao as a Meeting Point of the European, Chinese and Japanese Mathematical Traditions. Some Remarks on the Present State of Research, Mainly Concerning Sources (16thOCo17th Centuries) (U Baldini); The Transmission of Western Cosmology to 16th Century Japan (R Hiraoka); The Contents and Context of Manuel Dias' Tianwenle (H Leituo); The Textual Tradition of Manuel Dias' Tianwenle (R Magone); Restoring the Unity of the World: Fang Yizhi and Jie Xuan's Responses to Aristotelian Natural Philosophy (J Lim); Traditional Vietnamese Astronomy in Accounts of Jesuit Missionaries (A Volkov); Tom(r) Pereira (1645OCo1708), Clockmaker, Musician and Interpreter at the Kangxi Court: Portuguese Interests and the Transmission of Science (C Jami); The Yuzhi Lixiang Kaocheng Houbian in Korea (Y Shi). Readership: Advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers of the history of science, particularly East Asian science and Eastern and Western science relations; researchers on the history of the Society of Jesus."

Missionaries, and in particular the Portuguese Assistancy of the Society of Jesus, played a fundamental role in the dissemination of Western scientific knowledge in East Asia. They also brought to Europe a deeper knowledge of Asian countries. This volume brings together a series of essays analyzing important new data on this significant scientific and cultural exchange, including several in-depth discussions of new sources relevant to Jesuit scientific activities at the Chinese Emperor's Court. It includes major contributions examining various case studies that range from the work of some individual missionaries (Karel Slavíček, Guillaume Bonjour) in Beijing during the reigns of Kangxi and Yongzheng to the cultural exchange between a Korean envoy and the Beijing Jesuits during the early 18th century. Focusing in particular on the relationship between science and the arts, this volume also features articles pertaining to the historical contributions made by Tomás Pereira and Jean-Joseph-Marie Amiot, to the exchange of musical knowledge between China and Europe.

Through its missionary, pedagogical, and scientific accomplishments, the Society of Jesus-known as the Jesuits-became one of the first institutions with a truly "global" reach, in practice and intention. The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits offers a critical assessment of the Order, helping to chart new directions for research at a time when there is renewed interest in Jesuit studies. In particular, the Handbook examines their resilient dynamism and innovative spirit, grounded in Catholic theology and Christian spirituality, but also profoundly rooted in society and cultural institutions. It also explores Jesuit contributions to education, the arts, politics, and theology, among others. The volume is organized in seven major sections, totaling forty articles, on the Order's foundation and administration, the theological underpinnings of its activities, the Jesuit involvement with secular culture, missiology, the Order's contributions to the arts and sciences, the suppression the Order endured in the 18th century, and finally, the restoration. The volume also looks at the way the Jesuit Order is changing, including becoming more non-European and ethnically diverse, with its members increasingly interested in engaging society in addition to traditional pastoral duties.

This book looks at Galileo's friend, student, and patron, Gianfrancesco Sagredo (1571-1620). Sagredo's life brings to light the relationship between the production, distribution, and reception of political information and scientific knowledge.

As countries across Asia continue to rise and become more assertive global powers, the role that Higher Education has played, and continues to play, in this process is an issue of growing pertinence. Furthermore, understanding the relationship between Europe and Asia fostered by historical and contemporary knowledge transfer, including Higher Education, is crucial to analysing and encouraging the progress of both regional integration and inter-regional cooperation. With a specific focus on international Higher Education, European Studies in Asia investigates knowledge transfer and channels of learning between Europe and Asia from historical, contemporary and teaching perspectives. The book examines a selection of significant historical precedents of intellectual dialogue between the two regions and, in turn, explores contemporary cross-regional discourses both inside and outside of the official frameworks of the European Union (EU) and the Asia--Europe Meetings (ASEM). Drawing on extensive case studies based on many of his own teaching experiences, Georg Wiessala addresses key questions, such as the nature and construction of the European Studies in Asia curriculum; aspects of ‘values’, co-constructed learning and adult pedagogy in the discipline of European Studies in Asia; the politics of Asian host cultures, the ‘internationalization’ of Asian Higher Education and the experiences and expectations of tertiary sector students of this subject in Asia, Australia and New Zealand. In doing so, the author articulates a range of outcomes for the further development of Higher Education cooperation agendas between Asia and Europe, in the discipline of European Studies, and in related fields such as International Relations. This case study-led book makes an original and novel contribution to our understanding of European Studies in Asia. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian Education, Comparative Education, European Studies and International Relations.

An innovative exploration of the development of a revolutionary optical device and how it changed the world. Between 1608 and 1610 the canopy of the night sky changed forever, ripped open by an object created almost by accident: a cylinder with lenses at both ends. Galileo’s Telescope tells the story of how an ingenious optical device evolved from a toy-like curiosity into a precision scientific instrument, all in a few years. In transcending the limits of human vision, the telescope transformed humanity’s view of itself and knowledge of the cosmos. Galileo plays a leading—but by no means solo—part in this riveting tale. He shares the stage with mathematicians, astronomers, and theologians from Paolo Sarpi to Johannes Kepler and Cardinal Bellarmine, sovereigns such as Rudolph II and James I, as well as craftsmen, courtiers, poets, and painters. Starting in the Netherlands, where a spectacle-maker created a spyglass with the modest magnifying power of three, the telescope spread like technological wildfire to Venice, Rome, Prague, Paris, London, and ultimately India and China. Galileo’s celestial discoveries—hundreds of stars previously invisible to the naked eye, lunar mountains, and moons orbiting Jupiter—were announced to the world in his revolutionary treatise Sidereus Nuncius. Combining science, politics, religion, and the arts, Galileo’s Telescope rewrites the early history of a world-shattering innovation whose visual power ultimately came to embody meanings far beyond the science of the stars. Praise for Galileo’s Telescope “One of the most fascinating stories in the history of science.” —Mark Archer, The Wall Street Journal “In broad outline, the story of Galileo and the first use of a telescope in astronomy is well known. Bucciantini, Camerota, and Giudice take a new look at this seminal event by focusing on how the news spread across Europe and how it was received. Their well-written narrative examines the central issues using papers, paintings, letters, and other contemporary documents . . . After four centuries [Galileo’s] reputation has been thoroughly vindicated.” —D. E. Hogg, Choice

Historians of late premodern Korea have tended to regard it as a hermit kingdom, isolated from its neighbours and the wider world. In fact, as Ro argues in this book, Korean intellectuals were heavily influenced by both Chinese Neo-Confucianism and the European Enlightenment in the late 18th and 19th centuries. In the late Choson period the regime felt threatened by the new, more empirical, approaches to knowledge emerging from both the East and the West. For this reason many Korean intellectuals felt it necessary to work in the shadows and formed secret societies for the study of nature. Because of the secrecy of these societies, much of their work has remained unknown even in Korea until recent years. Ho looks at the work of these intellectuals and analyses the impact their thinking and experimentation had on knowledge production in Korea. A fascinating insight into the largely overlooked story of how globalization affected intellectual life in Korea before the 20th century. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of Korean history and of Asian intellectual history more broadly.

This book offers a new insight into one of the most interesting and long-lived institutions known to historians of science, the Chinese imperial Astronomical Bureau, which for two millennia observed, recorded, interpreted and predicted the movements of the celestial bodies. Utilising archival material, such as the résumés written for imperial audiences and personnel administration records, the book traces the rise and fall of more than thirty hereditary families serving at the Astronomical Bureau from the late Ming period to the end of the Qing dynasty. The book also presents an in-depth view into the organisation and function of the Bureau and succinctly charts the impacts of historical developments during the Ming and Qing periods, including the Regency of Prince Dorgon, the influence of the Jesuits, the relationship between the Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors and the He family and the failure of the bureau to predict correctly the solar eclipse of 1730. Presenting a social history of the Qing Astronomical Bureau from the perspective of hereditary astronomer families, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of Chinese Imperial history, the history of science and Asian history.

Connections between the Society of Jesus and astrology used to appear as unexpected at best. Astrology was never viewed favourably by the Church, especially in early modern times, and since Jesuits were strong defenders of Catholic orthodoxy, most historians assumed that their religious fervour would be matched by an equally strong rejection of astrology. This groundbreaking and compelling study brings to light new Jesuit scientific texts revealing a much more positive, practical, and nuanced attitude. What emerges forcefully is a totally new perspective into early modern Jesuit culture, science, and education, highlighting the element that has been long overlooked: astrology.

The book uncovers the Jesuits’ master-slave relation with Emperor Kangxi. Against the backdrop of this relationship, the book narrates Kangxi-Pope negotiations (1705-1721) regarding Chinese Rites Controversy and redefines the rise and fall of the Christian mission in early Qing China.