Europe observed: multiple gazes in early modern encounters

Abstract

This interdisciplinary work engages with the issue of how Europe and Europeans were perceived by observers from various parts of the world during the early modern period. It seeks thereby to redress the asymmetry in scholarship whereby European views of its others are given importance, but a near-total silence prevails about the reverse scenario. This volume contains nine dazzling contributions by distinguished scholars such as Suzanne Preston Blier, Vincent Carretta, Michael Fisher, Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Hans-Juergen Luesbrink, Nabil Matar, Nancy Shoemaker, Irene Silverblatt, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam.These essays represent sophisticated and rigorous scholarship that is historically aware and highly nuanced. The findings suggest that early modern perceptions about Europe and Europeans were shaped by complex, contingent factors and cannot be reduced to a simple, single paradigm. Kumkum Chatterjee is as an Associate Professor of History at the Penn State University. Clement Hawes is Professor English at Penn State University.