Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-xtvcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-27T01:16:47.353Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - European States and Overseas Empires

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Charles H. Parker
Charles H. Parker
Affiliation:
St Louis University, Missouri
Get access

Summary

In 1684, Philippe Couplet, a Jesuit missionary, gained an audience with the French king, Louis XIV, at his court in Versailles to ask for financial support for the Christian mission to China. To illustrate the potential of the Chinese mission, Couplet introduced Louis to Shen Fuzong, a youthful convert to Christianity preparing for the priesthood. Shen, whose baptized name was Michael Alphonse, demonstrated the use of chopsticks to the enchanted king. The gifts stoked Louis's interest in Chinese culture and his admiration for the renowned Kangxi emperor. Shortly thereafter, the French king authorized a delegation of Jesuit scientists for service in the imperial court, spawning a rich cultural exchange between France and China that has lasted into modern times.

For Europe's most powerful monarch, the Qing dynasty under the Kangxi emperor (r. 1661–1722) represented an ideal political order. The emperor wielded absolute power and enjoyed divine blessing; he employed an army of civil servants to govern his dominions; he possessed authority over a vast domain stretching from the eastern coastline to Outer Mongolia and Tibet; and he resided in a magnificent palace that exuded majestic order and power. In many respects, Louis's reign (1643–1715) also embodied these characteristics, though on a less grand scale. Casting himself in the image of Apollo (the Greek god of light and sun), Louis promoted himself as the Sun King and he professed to rule by divine right; he dominated Europe and pushed France's borders to their farthest point; and he too presided over an elaborate court life at Versailles that reflected his prestige and authority.

Type
Chapter
Information
Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age, 1400–1800 , pp. 13 - 38
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bentley, Jerry H., and Ziegler, Herbert F.Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past, vol. 2 From 1500 to the Present. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003.Google Scholar
Boxer, C. R.The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600–1800. Hammondsworth: Penguin, 1973.Google Scholar
Brook, Timothy. The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Burkholder, Mark A., and Johnson, Lyman L. Colonial Latin America. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, K. N.The English East India Company: The Study of an Early Joint Stock Company, 1600–1640. London: F. Cass, 1965.Google Scholar
Ehret, Christopher. The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800. Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Furber, Holden. Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient, 1600–1800. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Games, Alison. “Migrations and Frontiers,” in Falola, Toyin and Roberts, Kevin D. eds. The Atlantic World, 1450–2000. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008, 48–66.Google Scholar
Heath, Byron. Discovering the Great South Land. Dural, New South Wales: Rosenberg Publishing, 2005.Google Scholar
Horn, James. “English Diaspora,” in Marshall, P. J. ed. The Oxford History of the English Empire, vol. 2 The Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, 28–52.Google Scholar
Lenman, Bruce. “Colonial Wars and Imperial Instability, 1688–1793,” in Marshall, P. J. ed. The Oxford History of the English Empire, vol. 2 The Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, 151–168.Google Scholar
Mancall, Peter C. ed. Travel Narratives from the Age of Discovery: An Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Marshall, P. J. “The English in Asia: Trade to Dominion, 1700–1765,” in Marshall, P. J. ed. The Oxford History of the English Empire, vol. 2 The Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, 487–507.Google Scholar
Marshall, P. J. “The English in Asia to 1700,” in Nicholas Canny ed. The Oxford History of the English Empire, vol. 1 The Origins of Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, 264–285.Google Scholar
Mungello, D. E.The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500–1800. 2nd ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005.Google Scholar
Nash, Gary B. Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early North America. 3rd ed. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1992.Google Scholar
Oliver, Roland, and Atmore, Anthony. Medieval Africa, 1250–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, Geoffrey. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Pearson, M. N. “Merchants and States,” in Tracy, James D. ed. The Political Economy of Merchant Empires. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, 41–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, M. N.The New Cambridge History of India. vol. 1 The Portuguese in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Pomeranz, Kenneth, and Topik, Steven. The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2006.Google Scholar
Russell, Peter. Prince Henry ‘the Navigator’: A Life. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Spalding, Karen. “The Crises and Transformations of Invaded Societies: The Andean Area (1500–1580),” in Salomon, Frank and Schwartz, Stuart B. eds. The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, vol. 3, pt. 1 South America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. The Career and Legend of Vasco Da Gama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. The Portuguese in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History. New York: Longman, 1993.Google Scholar
Vink, Marcus P. M. “Between Profit and Power: The Dutch East India Company and Institutional Early Modernities in the “Age of Mercantilism,” in Parker, Charles and Bentley, Jerry eds. Between the Middle Ages and Modernity: Individual and Community in the Early Modern World. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007, 285–306.Google Scholar
Vries, Jan, and Woude, Ad. The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zoltvany, Yves F. ed. The French Tradition in America. Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 1969.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×