Global Entanglements of a Man Who Never Traveled: A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Christian and His Conflicted Worlds, by Dominic Sachsenmaier

Abstract

Global Entanglements of a Man Who Never Traveled introduces the world of Zhu Zongyuan, a Chinese scholar and Catholic convert interested in the broader world. Zhu never left his home and yet was part of a global history. He was a modestly successful regional scholar who, while staying home, nonetheless observed, studied, and reflected on the world, thus “a man who never traveled.” The other words in the book’s title—“entanglements” and “conflicted”— describe both the resonances and cacophonies of a subject who witnessed global change and lived between institutions and cultural expectations. In this case, Sachsenmaier tries to place Zhu against Catholic and Chinese contexts, but also within his provincial, family, and scholarly networks. This is not a straight biography, but rather a work that uses Zhu to discuss several related topics: world systems, the Catholic Church, Chinese Christians, and China’s global empire and its interaction with other empires.Sachsenmaier warns readers that this is not a biography proper. Instead, Zhu is the subject that allows us to see global connections. An introduction, five chapters, and an epilogue lay out Zhu’s context, the Catholic and Qing worlds in which he lived, and how his writing refracted global questions. The first chapter treats local and global contexts, including the changing state of the Qing, Zhu’s scholarly background, and the state exam system (Zhu passed the first stage juren examination in 1648). This period was one of rapid transition, with the Manchu government still relatively young and some part of the scholarly elite in opposition or exile. Christians like Zhu generally wanted to maintain positive relationships with the government.We have some tantalizing anecdotes about Zhu; for instance, he went by the name “Cosmas.” However, many blank spots remain. Regarding his family, we know he had two brothers but know almost nothing about them. Regarding his public and social roles, Zhu appears to have never held a formal government position. He was prominent in regional Catholic circles but we do not know if he ever held a formal role such as catechist. Regarding his scholarship, Zhu left a fairly modest scholarly record of limited scope, and we have nothing in the way of a diary, letters, or other classical autobiographical materials. Focusing on a figure who is less famous allows Sachsenmaier to shed light on Catholic figures who have often stayed in the shadows (at one point Zhu’s localness is compared to more famous writers like Xu Guangqi). He notes that there were never more than forty Jesuits in China during this period, that the hope of a Chinese clergy was of persistent interest but went unrealized, and that the majority of Catholics lived relatively quiet, modest lives.The first chapters provide context and situate Zhu, while chapters 4 and 5 include more of his own writing. One of the most interesting sections is chapter 4, “Foreign Learning and Confucian Ways,” where Sachsenmaier explains the academic and social context in which Zhu writes and then includes some close analysis of his writing. This is the chapter where we hear most directly from Zhu and get some sense of how he understood the world and his place in it. In this chapter Sachsenmaier notes the significance of ethnicity as an understudied topic in Catholic missions and provides a new perspective on encounters between missionaries and Chinese. Catholic priests often acted as oddity and attraction, augmenting the work of many lay Chinese Catholic leaders. In these passages, Zhu attempts to describe the role of non-Chinese and the Chinese state, and Sachsenmaier offers instances when Zhu draws on the classics to show how non-Chinese were accorded parity. Similarly, for scholars like Zhu, Chinese culture had always included a flow of outsiders who were often recognized and accepted within the culture. Zhu becomes something of an earnest advocate for the positive influence of such non-Han figures. Reading the first half of the book I had hoped to get some sense of Zhu’s voice, and in the last two chapters we read more of Zhu’s own thinking. Readers see how he used his classical studies to introduce his faith.In chapter 5 Sachsenmaier looks at how global identity was constructed in a mix of ways. He briefly looks at Jesuit, Buddhist, and Muslim corollaries. The writing is clear, teasing out fascinating questions. One interesting section looks at how Catholics conveyed, or did not convey, information about Europe and its violent wars; church leaders often elided or ignored anything that detracted from the image of their homelands as peaceful or civilized.For readers of this journal, the book is especially pertinent. With one eye always on global exchanges, Sachsenmaier helps show how such interaction was written into even very homebound lives. The Catholic missionary movement, says Sachesenmaier, was the largest global organization in this period. The book shows a close reading of Chinese history, Chinese Christian studies, and also world history. It provides an interesting foil to earlier works that have engaged Chinese history and world systems theory, like Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence, or books that have treated deeply local Chinese and Catholic history, such as Harrison’s recent The Missionary’s Curse and Other Tales from a Chinese Catholic Village. Missionaries and Chinese Catholics have often appeared in writing on Chinese history, especially about diplomacy, scientific sharing, or commerce.This book is simultaneously very narrow—treating one relatively obscure figure of modest output—and also very broad. The book comes across as a thought exercise, mapping out one individual’s global connections against a rich backdrop that includes Chinese academies and classical studies, the state and its dissenters, the massive Catholic missionary enterprise, and distant European wars and conflicts. This exercise is a success, and Sachsenmaier is able to show these connections in his relatively concise 150 pages of text.Given the dearth of information on Zhu himself, it may be worth asking whether another format might have yielded a richer environment in which to get at some of these questions. Would a group biography, traditional textual study, or perhaps a communal study have offered a better portrait of global entanglement? Could the global flow of missionaries be compared with other mechanisms of globalization (trade, immigration, Qing expansion)? Perhaps. Still, Global Entanglements is exactly the type of book that doctoral seminars or methods courses should include and it speaks to real voids in existing scholarship.