Europe and the Eastern Other Comparative Perspectives on Politics, Religion and Culture before the Enlightenment

This book critically evaluates arguments by leading western political theorists for adopting a comparative perspective in western political theory. These theorists argue that the increased frequency of inter-cultural contacts in a globalized world requires a more inclusive understanding of the political which should incorporate viewpoints from a variety of cultural contexts. The book supports the argument for comparative theorizing, and provides additional reasons to do so, by examining records of eyewitness accounts of Europeans visitors in Eastern lands before European Enlightenment. These include William of Rubruck's account of his journey to the Mongol lands in mid-thirteenth century, observations of the first Jesuit mission in the court of Mughal Indian emperor Akbar the Great and circumstances in late Ming China as recorded in the journals of Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci. The analysis of these European accounts is supplemented by several primary sources of contemporary eastern history. The book is a significant step forward in underscoring the importance and usefulness of adopting inter-cultural and comparative perspectives in western political theory. It extends the range of comparative analyses to the pre-modern period through considering a range of cases where actual encounters took place between representatives of the West and other cultures. It illustrates the dynamism and complexity involved in an inter-cultural encounter and highlights the fact that cultural self-understanding is often deeply rooted in how we understand our cultural others.