Article ID: CBB268240021

Astronomical Chronology, the Jesuit China Mission, and Enlightenment History (2023)

unapi

This article examines the use of astronomical chronology in Jesuit and secular works of history between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. It suggests that the highly visible adoption of astronomical records in historical scholarship in Enlightenment Europe by Nicolas Fréret and Voltaire was entangled with debates about Chinese chronology, translated by Jesuit missionaries. The article argues that the missionary Martino Martini's experience of the Manchu conquest of China was crucial in shaping his conception of history as a discipline. Political events that unfolded in seventeenth-century China had a marked effect on discussions about emergent world history in eighteenth-century Europe.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB268240021/

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Authors & Contributors
Cams, Mario
Asen, Daniel
Chu, Longfei
Collani, Claudia von
Demarchi, Franco
Elman, Benjamin A.
Journals
East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine
Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Guangxi Minzu Xueyuan Xuebao
History and Technology
Intellectual History Review
Journal of Early Modern History
Publishers
Amsterdam University Press
Ashgate
Steyler Verlag
Università degli Studi di Trento
University of Chicago Press
Concepts
Cross-cultural interaction; cultural influence
History as a discipline; chronology; study of the past
Astronomical chronology
East Asia, civilization and culture
Science and religion
Cartography
People
Martini, Martino
Newton, Isaac
Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de
Baumhauer, Albert Gillis von
Blaeu, Joan
Fréret, Nicolas
Time Periods
17th century
18th century
16th century
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
19th century
Ancient
Places
China
Europe
Caribbean
Mongolia
Institutions
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
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