DU HALDE, Jean Baptiste.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Description geographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise. First edition of this cornerstone of any China library. "Historically, this work must be regarded as monumental. Its strength lies in the vast amount and variety of interesting details, which must have given its readers an impression of the magnificence of the Chinese empire" (Löwendahl).Du Halde (1674-1743), a Jesuit, compiled information from the published and unpublished accounts of 27 missionary travellers. He provides valuable information on Chinese political institutions, education, language, medicine, science, customs, and artefacts, offering one of the earliest European discussions of Chinese ceramics. The maps were drawn by Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, internationally recognized as "the finest cartographer of his time" (Moreland & Bannister, p. 133), using recent Jesuit surveys commissioned by Emperor Kangxi. "The principal cartographic authority on China during the 18th century" (Tooley), the maps were the only adequate reference for more remote parts of China, Mongolia, and Tibet until the 20th century. The work also contains the first separate map of Korea.A timely publication, it offered Enlightenment thinkers a vision of "enlightened despotism"; it was quoted more than twenty times in the great Encyclopédie and described by Voltaire as "the most complete and best description of China in the world".

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