The Jesuits’ Negotiation of Science between France and China (1685–1722): Knowledge and Modes of Imperial Expansion

Abstract

If one considers only Western Europe, the early modern age was a period of maritime empires. However, if one takes into account the whole of Eurasia, then it appears as predominantly an age of continental empires. As late as 1700, six powers—the Habsburg Monarchy, the Ottoman Empire, Russia, the Safavid Empire, the Mughal Empire, and the Qing Empire—still seemed to dwarf Western Europe in territorial extent, so much so that it would be reasonable to ask how far and in what ways the latter’s overseas expansion was shaped by the overwhelming dominance of other empires on land. As suggested by Subrahmanyam, broadening our spatial scope to encompass Eurasia as a whole also leads to the extension of the chronological scope of early modernity.1 Turning our attention to East Asia, this extended scope would correspond to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and the early and middle period of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). The Qing is now increasingly envisioned as a time when China—the territories previously ruled by the Ming—was conquered and then ruled by the Manchus, who made it part of an expanding empire.2 From this perspective, the “first globalization” was a time of interactions between empires on an unprecedented scale, rather than the rise of the imperial phenomenon itself.