China and world history in Italian nineteenth century thought. Some remarks on Giuseppe Ferrari’s work

Abstract

ABSTRACT La Chine et l ’ Europe by Giuseppe Ferrari, published in 1867, has for a long time not been considered one of the outstanding works of this eminent figure in the history of political thought of nineteenth-century Italy. In fact, his comparative view of the history of European and Chinese civilizations offers interesting suggestions in a perspective aiming to investigate the varieties of approaches to world history in the late nineteenth 5century. Based on a large amount of primary and secondary sources, notwithstanding the fact that Ferrari was not a Sinologist, it offers a parallel investigation on Chinese and European history opposed to the disparaging representations of Chinese politics and culture, widespread in the age of European imperialism. Avoiding, at the same time, a naïve Sinophile approach, Ferrari seeks instead a balance in which the varieties and comparability of civilizations, in a world context, stand as the basis of this original investigation.