''China and the Christian Impact'' was published in 1985 as the English translation of

Jacques Gernet Jacques Gernet (; ; 22 December 1921, Algiers, French Algeria – 3 March 2018, Vannes) was an eminent French sinologist of the second half of the 20th century. His best-known work is ''The Chinese Civilization'', a 900-page summary of Chinese h ...

's ''Chine et christianisme'' of 1982. It received considerable attention from academic circles dealing with

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and the

Jesuit mission The phrase Jesuit missions usually refers to a Jesuit missionary enterprise in a particular area, involving a large number of Jesuit priests and brothers, and lasting over a long period of time. List of some Jesuit missions * Circular Mission ...

, mainly because of its approach to the subject from an almost exclusively Chinese point of view. In this Gernet differs much from previous studies on the China mission, the most famous up to that point perhaps being the Jesuit George Dunne's Generation of Giants (1962), which analyzes the

Jesuit China mission The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a si ...

from a decidedly

eurocentric Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world ...

perspective. In spite of the wide range of source material consulted by its author, Gernet's book has been criticized on account of its apparent anachronisms, and lack of explanatory background information when dealing with historically related events.

Sources

* Gernet, Jacques, ''Chine et christianisme. Action et réaction'', Paris: Gallimard, 1982. (reedited in 1991 as ''Chine et christianisme. La première confrontation'') * Gernet, Jacques and Lloyd, Janet (transl.), ''China and the Christian Impact. A Conflict of Cultures'', Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

, 1985

Reviews

* Ching, Julia in: ''History of religions'' 27(1), August 1987 * Barrett, T.H. in: ''Journal of Ecclesiastical History'' 38 (1), January 1987 * Cohen, Paul A. in: ''Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies'' 47 (2), 1987 * Pratt, Keith in: ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 51 (1), 1988 * Mungello, David E. in: ''Catholic Historical Review'' 74 (1), January 1988 * Spence, Jonathan D. in: ''China Quarterly'' 108, 1986 *

Simon Leys Pierre Ryckmans (28 September 1935 – 11 August 2014), better known by his pen name Simon Leys, was a Belgian-Australian writer, essayist and literary critic, translator, art historian, sinologist, and university professor, who lived in Austral ...

: ''The Burning Forest'', August 1988 Jesuit China missions {{china-hist-book-stub

See also

Sources

Reviews