In 1659, a vast and unusual map of China arrived in the Bodleian
Library, Oxford. It was bequeathed by John Selden, a London
business lawyer, political activist, former convict, MP and the
city's first Orientalist scholar. Largely ignored, it remained in
the bowels of the library, until called up by an inquisitive
reader. When Timothy Brook saw it in 2009, he realised that the
Selden Map was 'a puzzle that had to be solved': an exceptional
artefact, so unsettlingly modern-looking it could almost be a
forgery. But it was genuine, and what it has to tell us is
astonishing. It shows China, not cut off from the world, but a
participant in the embryonic networks of global trade that fuelled
the rise of Europe - and which now power China's ascent. And it
raises as many question as it answers: how did John Selden acquire
it? Where did it come from? Who re-imagined the world in this way?
And most importantly - what can it tell us about the world at that
time? Brook, like a cartographic detective, has provided answers -
including a surprising last-minute revelation of authorship. From
the Gobi Desert to the Philippines, from Java to Tibet and into
China itself, Brook uses the map (actually a schematic
representation of China's relation to astrological heaven) to tease
out the varied elements that defined this crucial period in China's
history.
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