Christopher Harding on the Western Fascination with the East

With great joy we welcome Christopher Harding to the bookshop for a discussion of his latest work on Asian History, The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East. This rich and enjoyable book by the acclaimed author of Japan Story explores the many ways in which Asia has influenced Europe and North America over centuries of tangled, dynamic encounters.

We hope you'll join us in celebrating one of the many wonderful Historians that we are so fortunate to have on our doorstep!

The Light of Asia

From the time of the ancient Greeks onwards the West's relationship with Asia consisted for the most part of outrageous tales of strange beasts and monsters, of silk and spices shipped over vast distances and an uneasy sense of unknowable empires fantastically far away. By the twentieth century much of Asia might have come under Western rule after centuries of warfare, but its intellectual, artistic and spiritual influence was fighting back.

The Light of Asia is a wonderfully varied and entertaining history of the many ways in which Asia has shaped European and North American culture over centuries of tangled, dynamic encounters, and the central importance of this vexed, often confused relationship. From Marco Polo onwards Asia has been both a source of genuine fascination and equally genuine failures of comprehension. China, India and Japan were all acknowledged to be both great civilizations and in crude ways seen as superseded by the West.

From Chicago to Calcutta, and from antiquity to the new millennium, this is a rich, involving story of misunderstandings and sincere connection, of inspiration and falsehood, of geniuses, adventurers and con-men.

About Christopher Harding

Christopher Harding is the author of the widely praised Japan Story: In Search of a Nation - described by Neil MacGregor as 'masterly'- and The Japanese. Harding teaches at the University of Edinburgh and frequently broadcasts on Radio 3 and Radio 4. He also writes the IlluminAsia blog, about Asia's influence on Western life.