In fact there has been some work done by Japanese scholars on anti-missionary incidents in China, some of it I hope to be able to integrate into my own dissertation research…once my Japanese gets to where it needs to be. (It’s currently being sidetracked by my studying Manchu.)

I’ve read the Spence book, and we have a Chinese version somewhere around the house here. I haven’t read the Castiglione book, but I do love his paintings. Some of his artwork (or reproductions thereof) hang in the Forbidden City and I believe that he designed the western-style palace at Yuanmingyuan. Thanks for the suggestion.

In my own projects, I have 2 areas I am interested in related to Chinese history and read 95% in Japanese with the other 5% in english. The Japanese scholars do such an outstanding job– not just comprehensive and detailed studies but extraordinarily well-written as well. (Oh, if only our own scholars would try and write more like spence and Jeremiah!) So, I find that it is a better environment for me to read and think in–

NHK– of course– rivals the BBC in its aim to raise the educational standards of the general public– I think I read on the BBC site something about, “an aim to uplift”…
And, you just cannot help but think: “Didn’t the US use to have public TV?” The last PBS documentary I saw (on bamiyan) was so bad (done a la Hollywood), I wanted to turn it off.

In the two small areas of history I am particularly interested in, my impressions (related to J’s comment just above) have been 1) English language sources are surprsingly insular (Chinese/Japanese– even Europrean translations into English are few) and 2) the Japanese for their part are not only less insular but often times they work with NHK or even private TV to produce book-documentary pairs– so history seems more alive here– that is to say it is more accessible to the general public.

Finally, of course, the Japanese are really in love with narrative history and historical literature– both genres are huge here.

J., I enjoyed this post very much! How about a “Missionary of the week” series…like I said, I am re-reading Matteo Ricci …. Do you have this book, btw, Giuseppe Castiglione: A Jesuit Painter at the Court of the Chinese Emperors? (beurdeley)

PS also a personal impression, but I have not found the same to be so in English-language Chinese art history scholarship.

Wu Ming,

THAT is a subject for a whole other post I’m working on at the moment and I totally agree. How many Chinese historians of China were on your comps list? Had they all shown up for my orals, my list of Chinese Chinese historians could have fit in the back seat of a Xiali and that’s not a good thing.

I totally here you on the Japan thing. Amen, brother.